


(It's not the end of the world) it's the world you have to live in

by smaragdbird



Category: Primeval
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dinosaurs, Lies, M/M, Saving the World, Secret Identity, Time Travel, Tsarist Russia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-16
Updated: 2012-12-31
Packaged: 2017-11-14 09:08:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/513608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaragdbird/pseuds/smaragdbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>16 years ago Patrick Quinn and his friend Matt were stranded on the wrong side of an anomaly and were shortly separated as well afterwards. When chance brings Ethan Dobrowski back to the present he joins the ARC to wait for Danny's return, to reenact his revenge on the brother who he believes abandoned him.</p><p>Matt, having returned after being stranded in a desolate, dystopian future filled with monsters, has returned as well to prevent said future from ever happening by any means necessary.</p><p>As Ethan becomes more and more drawn to Becker he begins to question his decisions and Matt's as well but all that holds them in the ARC is a closely spun net of lies that would unravel as soon as one of them would tell the truth. But time draws near and in the face of the looming extinction on most life on earth and his personal feelings Ethan will have to make a decision.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://au-bigbang.livejournal.com/profile)[**au_bigbang**](http://au-bigbang.livejournal.com/).
> 
> Lots of love for [](http://fredbassett.livejournal.com/profile)[**fredbassett**](http://fredbassett.livejournal.com/) for the quick and thorough beta-reading :)
> 
> [The not so serious character sheet](http://smaragdbird.livejournal.com/83066.html)
> 
> Basically I took the idea that Ethan might spent his 18 anomaly years in Tsarist Russia and **ran**

  
Patrick ran as fast he could, criss-crossing his path with every obstacle that he found. Behind him he could hear the screams of the shadow jumpers, angry that he was escaping them for now. They were hungry, too. They were hungry all the time. Just like him and Matt.

And Danny still hadn’t come.

He had been so sure that if anyone could find them it would be Danny. Ryan would have told him. About the beast. About the light.

Faster, his mind said, faster. Matt, where was Matt? He couldn’t have lost him, not now. Matt had been right behind him just a moment ago, Patrick was sure of that.

There were lights here, too, between the monster-infested ruins. But none of them had led home so far and Patrick was starting to think that they never would.

Another angry cry followed him. Close, too close. The beast had to be right behind him.

Where was Matt?

He didn’t shout. Shouting only attracted the big, ugly things with claws as long as Patrick’s forearm.

He took a corner and skidded to a halt. There was a light right in front of him and on a rooftop he spotted Matt. Patrick waved his arm but instead of waving back, Matt was motioning for him to turn around.

He was too slow. He heard the sound of his jacket and shirt being ripped apart before he felt the blood or the pain. Stumbling backwards he fell through the light and the damp ground under his feet gave away to knee high snow and suddenly Patrick scrambled to get back to his feet and had to fight even harder to get away. The shadow jumpers didn’t seem to be disturbed by the sudden temperature drop but it screeched angrily when the snow hindered it to get to Patrick.

The air was so cold he couldn’t breathe. Suddenly the light began to swirl faster and faster and faster and then disappeared. Patrick was alone in the snow with the screams of the beast echoing against the black sky.


	2. Chapter 1

Matt couldn’t breathe. The sulphur stole the air from his lungs and tiny silicate crystals bit into his skin. In the distance they could hear the roar of a predator, followed by the cry of an ant.

Ara drew his weapon but Mandras shook his head, gesturing for them to move on. Somewhere further behind someone collapsed and Kate hurried to see if she could help them.

This time it was Isaiah. Matt could see that Anjali was trying to wake him up, shaking him increasingly harder but from the way he hung limply in her grip Matt already knew he was dead. So did Kate who took Anjali by the shoulders and dragged her away but her anguished howls could be heard even over the storm.

“Quiet,” Marama hissed to her. “Or you’ll draw the predators.”

Matt’s foot slipped on a stone and he fell down to his knees. A few people were giving him looks as they walked past him as if they had always known that he wouldn’t make it. Most, however, kept their faces down, eyes on the ground, stoically taking one step after the other.

“Get up, son,” Gideon held his hand out to him and Matt took it, heaving himself back to his feet.

Paavo passed him, carrying Izar on his back, and gave him an encouraging smile that Matt returned. Gideon urged him to move on, keeping a comforting hand on Matt’s back as they followed Mandras to the next shelter under an eternally yellow sky.

In the present the sky was blue. That was the first thing Matt noticed when he woke up each morning and it was the first thing he forgot when he fell asleep. The sky had been yellow for so long that he had forgotten nearly everything that had happened before. His parents’ faces had long since been replaced by Gideon’s and his friends with the other Nomads. The only face that remained was Patrick’s with the blood on his shoulder and the look of shock and horror on his face as the beast had hunted him through the anomaly.

Matt splashed water into his face to get rid of the dream and climbed into the shower. As he stood under the spray he could hear Ara’s voice in his head, scoffing at the water he was wasting.

 

Ethan had his arm wrapped around Charlotte’s waist, holding her up as they followed Emily through the theatre. Charlotte coughed weakly and her skin was burning under Ethan’s fingers. They had taken too long to find a gateway back to the human world.

Emily pushed ineffectively at a couple of closed doors.

“Let me,, Ethan told her and helped Charlotte to sit down on a chair. “It’ll be fine,, he told her encouragingly. “They have medicine here.”

But the doors wouldn’t budge. He could hear Emily whispering to Charlotte. “There must be another way out,, he said quickly trying the next door.

But they wouldn’t open either.

He felt it the moment Emily looked at him, the moment Charlotte died. He fell down on his knees next to her, taking her hand between his. It was still warm but limb. Emily was saying something to him but he didn’t care. There was only emptiness and the knowledge that he had just lost everything all over again.

“This is all your fault,, he pressed out between gritted teeth.

“We have to get back to the others,, Emily told him sternly. “It’s what Charlotte would want. She understood our rules.”

“She died because of you and your rules,, Ethan replied angrily. “We should have gone through the last gateway no matter what the risk. We shouldn’t have left it for so long.”

“It looked too dangerous!”

“You said – “

“Shh!” Ethan heard it, too. Footsteps. Someone was coming. Too late.

“She can’t be found,, Emily said, quickly moving to get away from the footsteps.

Ethan was following her, move out of instinct than because he wanted too. They had to get back to the gateway and give Charlotte a proper burial. When she had fallen ill he had promised her to bring her home but who could there where they were now?

The man was standing at the gateway. Ethan could only see his back but he heard him talking with someone in English. So they were in Britain, maybe even close to the year when he had vanished and – the man turned around and Ethan could see his face.

“That’s not possible,, he whispered.

“What?” Emily asked. Somewhere else in the theatre something moved and Matt, could it really be Matt? Moved quickly away from the anomaly. “We need to leave, now, Emily urged him.

“I’m not leaving. I gave Charlotte a promise. I won’t go.” 

“Who’s there?” Matt called into their direction.

Ethan decided to take a chance.

“Don’t shoot me, okay, Matt?” He said, stepping out between the requisites.

“Patrick?” Matt asked disbelievingly. “I thought you were dead.”

“It’s good to see you too,” Ethan replied with a wry smirk.

“You came through the anomaly.”

“The gateway, yes. Seems like you found a way home sooner than I did. Where are we?”

“London, 2011,, Matt replied.

“Matt?” Someone was calling and Ethan used the distraction to slip back into the shadows. He wasn’t sure what was going on here but he had learned not to put too much trust into people carrying weapons.

 

“The dead woman belongs to you?” Ethan heard a man ask.

“We’re a group of travellers through the gateways”, Emily answered. The blonde girl and the dark-haired man exchanged a look at that.

“Please,, Emily started again, I need to find-“  
“Is there anyone in your group called Danny Quinn?” the boy asked. 

Ethan listened closely. First Matt and now Danny? How much of this could be a coincidence? Or maybe the universe was playing a cruel joke on him again. Old anger burned at the back of his mind. Danny. Danny who hadn’t come for him.

“No, I know no one with this name,” Emily answered. 

Matt looked surprised at her answer and Ethan decided to act before he could say too much.

“Do you have a photograph?” he asked, stepping out of the rafters. The man, younger than Ethan had first guessed him, trained his weapon on him. “Some people use different names after coming through the gateways,” he explained politely while fixing his eyes on Matt.

“And you are?” the solder asked.

“Ethan Dobrowski,” Ethan answered. 

Matt raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything.

“Here.” The man showed him a picture on a futuristically looking phone. “That’s Danny.”

It was his brother. Older, sure, but unmistakably his Danny.

“Sorry, never seen him,” Ethan said out loud.

Another roar interrupted them.

“Tree creepers,” Emily said, looking up the same moment as did Ethan.

“We need to get you out of here,” the man said.

“We know these creatures,” Emily argued. “You don’t.”

“It’ll get to the highest point and attack from there. It uses its tail to catch its prey,” Ethan explained, drawing his revolver. From the corners of his eyes he could see the blonde girl scowling at him but the man looked approving.

“So what?” Matt asked.

“We can help you,” Emily said without taking her eyes off the ceiling. She and Ethan had their backs to each other so that the tree creeper couldn’t catch them from behind. They had always made a good team despite Ethan’s misgivings.

“Watch out,” Ethan yelled, pushing the soldier out of the tree creeper’s path, trusting Emily to have his back. He could hear shots and the sound of a body collapsing on the ground. When he looked up the tree creeper lay unconscious on the ground.

“Nice shot,” he told the blonde girl.

“We have to get it back through the anomaly,” she said, giving Ethan a short nod.

But the soldier shook his head. “We can’t. The anomaly just closed.”

Emily gave him a shocked look but Ethan didn’t know whether to feel glad or sad. Sure he had told Emily that he wouldn’t go back with her but choosing not to go and being stranded were two different things.

“But we need to get back to the others,” Emily insisted.

“You heard him. We can’t,” Ethan replied. He was starting to regret his decision to come out to them. Who knew what they were going to do with him and Emily.

“We could bring them back to the ARC, talk to Lester,” the girl said.

“It’s not like we have much choice, don’t we?” the man replied but he didn’t look happy.

“We’re right here,” Ethan said, never having liked people talking about him as if he wasn’t in the same room with them.

“Sorry,” the man said. “I’m Captain Becker and these are Abby Maitland and Matt Anderson. We’re working for the ARC.”

“The Arc?” Emily asked confused.

“Not that one,” Becker said quickly.

“I’m Lady Emily Merchant,” Emily introduced herself. “I was born in London in 1840.”

“Ethan Edmundovich Dobrowski,” Ethan said, “I’m Russian.” He could see Matt raising his eyebrows at him and returned the gesture. “What’s the Arc?”

“We’ll explain that on the way,” Matt said.

 

Lester listened to Matt’s explanation of the events with an unmoving face.

“Well,” he said finally, looking at Ethan and Emily. “It seems like you’re stuck here for the time being. I can’t exactly let you run around so you’ll have to stay here until we find an anomaly back to your time.”

“We can help,” Ethan said, taking a step forwards. “You fight against the creatures coming from the gateways, am I right? We have survived for years out there.”

“He’s right,” Emily stepped forward as well. “Let us make ourselves useful.”

Lester gave them a sceptical look. “How exactly would that better than keeping you here?”

“We know those creatures better than you do. We have travelled through many gateways and fought against creatures from all time streams,” Emily said fiercely. 

“I saved your man’s life,” Ethan added, nodding in Becker’s direction who didn’t look particularly happy that Ethan had brought the incident up. “You need every backup you can get.”

“Fine,” Lester sighed resigned. “But only until we can bring you back to your own time. And you’ll follow every order Captain Becker gives you. Is that understood?”

Both Ethan and Emily nodded.

“One thing,” Ethan said, ignoring the exasperated look Lester was giving him, “I promised Charlotte to bury her in her family’s grave.”

“Is that the woman who died?” Lester asked.

Emily nodded. “She…her name is…was Charlotte Cameron. Her family is buried in the Tower Hill Cemetery here in London.”

“How do you want to explain that you found their great-great-great grand aunt or whatever she was and that she died yesterday?” Matt interjected.

“We don’t have to tell anyone,” Ethan told him more sharply than he probably should have.

“Technically that would vandalism,” Lester pointed out with a sigh.

“It’s a burial. Do you think her family would object if they knew all the facts?” Abby asked.

Lester looked as if he doubted that the 21st century descendants of the Cameron family would be very understanding. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said finally. “Jess and Matt will show you around. One slip up and you’ll never leave this building again, understood?”

 

Jess took care of Emily while Matt steered Ethan away from everyone else until they reached a deserted corridor.

“What are you playing at, Patrick?” Matt hissed between his teeth, his grip like an iron clamp around Ethan’s arm.

“Don’t call me that,” Ethan wrenched himself free. “I could ask you the same question, Matt Anderson is it now, isn’t it?”

“You don’t know what I’ve been through, what I’ve seen.”

“Yeah? Neither do you.” Ethan smiled dangerously with all his teeth showing.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“The rest of your team doesn’t know, do they?” Ethan asked. “Let’s make a deal, you don’t tell them who I was and I don’t tell them who you are.”

“Why should I trust you?”

Ethan rolled his eyes. “It’s not about trust, Matt. Just keep your mouth shut and so will I.”

“Fine,” Matt said at last but reluctantly.

 

He and Emily were each given a small windowless room with a bed and a separate bathroom. In the corner next to the door stood an empty hanger with a mirror. It was the most luxurious accommodation he had ever lived in. Ethan opened the bathroom door and eyed the shower with some curiosity when someone knocked on the door.

He had expected Matt but it was Becker. He was holding a bunch of clothes in his arms.

“Thought you might like something different,” he said, holding the clothes out to Ethan.

“Thanks,” Ethan said surprised and took the bundle. Then he saw that Becker had his revolver. “Can I have that back?”

“Once you proved to me that you can shoot with it,” Becker replied. His loose stance, the easy slope of his shoulders and the look he gave him told Ethan that Becker was challenging him. He had seen the same gesture too often, both with the movement and in prison.

“For a soldier you’ve been pretty sloppy today. Maybe you should prove the same to me,” he smirked at Becker.

“Should I?” Becker’s tone changed from casual to challenging as well.

“Give it a thought,” Ethan replied, his smirk widening. “Twenty minutes?”   
“I’ll see you.” It didn’t escape him that Becker looked back over his shoulder at him as he walked away.

 

Russian Empire, Tambov Oblast, Rasskazovsky, 1887  
Ethan never remembered his first week in 1885. Irena told him after that he’d called out for Danny again and again in his fever but Ethan never recalled that memory or even how Irena and her father had found him in the snow.

The first thing he did remember was waking up in an unfamiliar room with his side burning like fire.

“Oh, hello.” The girl that sat at the small table close to his bed smiled.

“Where am I?” Patrick asked. His throat was dry and hurt.

“You need water,” the girl decided with a thick accent he couldn’t place. Something east-European. She moved quickly and held a cup to his lips from which he drank greedily.

“Where am I?” he repeated, clearer now.

“You’re in my father’s house. I’m Irena Aljonova Dobrowski and my father is Edmundo Alexeivich Dobrowski.” She waited for his reply but Patrick only stared at her. Her answer had told him nothing.

“Patrick Quinn,” he said finally. 

Irena giggled as she tried to pronounce his name but it came horribly mangled.

“You came from the light, didn’t you?” she asked with excitement glittering in her eyes. “Like that terrible creature you’ve slain and-“

“Irena,” a male voice said sternly.

“Papa,” was all Patrick could understand before she continued to speak in a language he hadn’t heard before. The man, her father doubtlessly, was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a black beard and warm, dark eyes.

“You must excuse my daughter,” he said, sitting down in Irena’s vacated chair. His accent was less strong than Irena’s. “I’m afraid we don’t get much excitement here.”

“Where is here?” 

“You’re on my estate in Rasskazovsky in the Tambov Oblast of the Russian Empire.” Most of these words meant nothing to Patrick but he swallowed at the last one.

“Which year?”

“17th of January 1885.” Edmundo gave Patrick a moment to digest the news before he asked, “I understand you came from the light?”

Patrick nodded.

“And that light leads to a faraway place?” 

He nodded again. “What happened? The last thing I remember is suddenly standing in the dark with snow around me and that creature coming closer.”

“From what I’ve seen when we found you, you grabbed a stone and smashed its head in. Which was very brave. We have seen a creature like this before and the last time it killed four men before we put an end to it.”

“I killed so many of them, I guess I got good at it,” Patrick said more or less to himself and Edmundo nodded.

“The light is it…is it still there?” he asked.

“No, it vanished quickly after we found you,” Edmundo explained. Patrick swallowed against the rising dread in his throat. He was stranded more than a hundred years from home. Edmundo put a large hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. Out here we say that when one tree falls another is planted.”

“Was…was there someone else coming through the light? A boy, red hair…”

“No, I’m sorry,” Edmundo said, rubbing Patrick’s shoulder lightly. “You should sleep. We will talk when you feel better.”

 

After months of living inside ruins under the constant threat of the shadow jumpers, Edmundo’s house was sheer luxury. None of the other people living in the house spoke English and mostly Patrick was sleeping anyway. Irena came by often, always bubbling over with questions.

A man, probably a doctor, came by once to look at the wounds on Patrick’s side. He said a lot of things Patrick didn’t understand but he looked satisfied when he left.

Finally when he was strong enough to walk again they made him take a bath for which he was grateful and Irena took him downstairs into what had to be her father’s study.

 

“How do you feel?” was the first thing Edmundo asked.

“Better, thank you,” Patrick replied. It hurt to sit down so he remained standing. Edmundo was an impressive man, naturally demanding attention and respect.

“I understand that you have no family and no friends in this world?”

“I’m alone,” Patrick confirmed. “And I have nowhere to go.”

“I am offering you a place here,” Edmundo said, looking him in the eyes. “You would help out at the estate, keep Irena company – you’d have a place to sleep and to eat.”

“But you don’t know me,” Patrick blurted.

“I know that you are brave. I told you that already. And my daughter seems to like you.” At his words Patrick looked at Irena who smiled at him.

“I…I don’t know what to say.”

“Just say you’ll stay,” Irena admonished him. She seemed excited at the prospect of keeping him.

“Yes…I…I mean thank you,” Patrick stuttered. Under Edmundo’s dark eyes he felt the need to prove himself, right now in this moment.

“He needs a name,” Irena said.

Patrick gave her a confused look. “But I have a name.”

“What she means is that we need to explain your presence here. People talk and it wouldn’t do you any favours if it was known that you came from the light,” Edmundo explained.

“He could be Ethan,” Irena threw in quickly. “That’d explain everything.”

“Ethan?” Patrick asked.

“My brother married an Englishwoman and lived and worked in London. They had a son, Ethan. They all died last year but no one outside my family knows this. If I explained that you were Ethan Dobrowski, my nephew returning home after his parents’ death it would take all suspicion from you.”

“And it explains why he only speaks English,” Irena added, quickly warming up to the idea.

“Ethan Dobrowski,” Patrick said and managed to smile. “I like it.”

 

Winter was colder than anything Patrick had ever experienced. Snow was piling up to the window sill and buried all and every road beneath it. But that didn’t make the work any lesser. Wood needed to be 

“Drink that,” Abram, the old cook said, and handed him a steaming mug.

“Tea?” He asked taking a sip.

“Hot vodka with lime and honey,” Abram answered and laughed when Patrick started coughing. “Drink it boy, it brings back the bones into your bones.”

 

Just as quickly as winter passed summer came. During his time between anomalies seasons hadn’t existed. In Russia summer had meant warm, sunny days back on the estate. He and Irena took out horses or walked to the lake in forest, eating summer berries, swimming, splashing until their skin turned red whenever they could find the time.

“I wish this would never end,” Irena said. She lay stretched out next to the small fire where they fried the rabbits they had shot earlier.

“Me neither,” Ethan admitted.

“You just don’t want to go back to school,” Irena teased him.

“It gives me headaches,” Ethan tried to defend himself.

Irena laughed, clear and high, like a bell on St. Peter’s day. In the summer sunlight her long tresses glinted like gold. Ethan smiled slowly.

“I don’t want it to end because everything’s perfect right now,” he told her.

“Yeah,” she agreed softly. “It is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: Dobrowski is a Polish name and Western, especially English sounding names were fashionable in late 19th century Russia hence people running around with Edmundo or Ethan


	3. Chapter 2

For a couple days nothing happened. Jess was quite happy to take Emily and Ethan out shopping one slow afternoon. Ethan only remembered London very vaguely but what he saw had little in common with the city of his memories. 

Connor spent most of his time in his lab, so Ethan had barely seen him and he found it hard to relate to Abby who was quite cool in her behaviour and cared too much about the animals in Ethan’s opinion.

Else he spent most of his time with Becker, either on the shooting range or hand to hand. The sort of fighting Becker practiced had nothing to do with what Ethan was used to which basically amounted to brawling.

The first few incursions went off without a hitch. Either no creature had come through or they were caught quickly, with the memorable exception of a small herd of Iguanodon raiding a strawberry farm.

 

“Why do all schools smell the same, like spot cream and misery?” Connor asked.

“I quite liked school,” Becker replied.

“Yeah, figures,” Connor muttered. “What about you Matt. How was your school days?”

“Don’t remember.”

“Come on, everybody remembers school!” Connor needled.

“Not me.” Ethan suspected that there was some truth in it. After 18 years everything before the first gateway was hazy for him as well. Sometimes even Danny’s face. 

“I had a governess,” Emily said before Connor could press Matt for more. “She taught me needlework and French and I had a key to my father’s library.” A smile stole over her face. “I stole it from the housekeeper. The poor woman always thought that the dog had eaten it.” From her expression she wasn’t exactly innocent of that particular theory.

“What about you, Ethan? Did you have a governess as well?” Connor asked.

“Country folk, Connor. Governesses were something for fancy people in the cities. My cousin and I walked to school every day. But I learned French, too, of course, and Russian.”

“I thought you were Russian?” Becker asked.

“Polish,” he grinned and added, looking at Becker, “kocham wasze ciemne oczy.”

“How many languages do you speak?” Connor asked, sounding impressed.

“Five, I speak German as well. Although,” he lowered his voice conspirational, “I was rubbish at mathematics. And the less you know about my struggles with the great classics of Russian literature the better. I’m still convinced Tolstoy wrote War and Peace specifically to torture me.”

Matt was the only one who didn’t laugh.

“I love novels,” Emily replied still smiling.

“I get headaches from reading. Also Irena and I spent too much time outside for that. She’s an even better shot than I am. I mean, she was,” Ethan added as if he could ever forget that Irena was dead. But it evoked sympathy. He had an advantage over Emily and Matt who either couldn’t or wouldn’t talk about their past while Ethan had long since learned what he could tell people and what not to draw them in. Especially Becker. Ethan had always had a weakness for dark eyes.

Becker put a hand on his arm to stop him when they were turning around a corner. There was a trail of blood on the floor, leading away from the entrance.

After that pretty much everything went to hell.

 

“How did you get take out?” Becker asked a little bemused when he opened the door for Ethan.

“By paying for it. Believe it or not money was already invented in the 1890’s,” Ethan rolled his eyes and marched into Becker’s kitchen. Setting the take out on the table he drummed his fingers expectantly on the top. “Do you still use cutlery or has the future found more refined means of eating?”

“Did _you_ use cutlery?” Becker asked back, opening a drawer.

“Much more than this. I’m coming to believe that society has become less sophisticated during the last century. Just ask Emily.”

“Emily seems to like the 21st century,” Becker countered.

“If I had to live in 1860’s London I would have went through the first available anomaly too. Boring place.”

“How did you know-?” Becker asked as he opened the containers and found his favourite meal in them.

“Connor told Jess.”

“And you-?”

“I’m very good at listening to other people’s conversations.” Ethan smirked unrepentantly. “Sit down, I’ll make you some tea.”

“Make yourself at home,” Becker drawled. 

Ethan gave him a quick grin in return and turned the kettle on before helping Becker to settle down on the couch. He returned to the kitchen and took something else out of his bag.

While the kettle boiled he watched Becker, smiling when he leaned back with a groan.

“This will bring back the strength to your bones,” Ethan promised him when he sat a mug down in front of Becker.

“Is that vodka?” Becker asked, grimacing at the tea when he took a sip.

“Drink it and be glad that I have faith in your medicine and don’t pour it over your leg so it doesn’t get infected,” Ethan replied cheerfully at the face Becker made.

 

“What time is it?” Becker mumbled into his pillow.

“Two in the afternoon,” Ethan replied amused. He had spent the night on the couch to make sure Becker was okay. 

The door bell rang again.

Becker groaned but didn’t move a muscle.

“It’s probably Jess coming to your aid with Chinese takeout,” Ethan mused but Becker didn’t reply. He was asleep again, knocked out by the painkillers and the vodka Ethan had made him drink last night for his own good.

Ethan picked up his jeans and Becker’s shirt since he couldn’t remember where he had put his and went to open the door with a smirk on his face.

Only it wasn’t Jess. It was Matt.

“Hey, Becker I just wanted to know if you’re-“He stopped for a moment when he saw Ethan instead of Becker and finished a bit belatedly, “-okay. Where’s Becker?”

“Sleeping,” Ethan replied truthfully.

“And what are you doing here?”

Ethan deliberately looked down at his bare feet and tugged at the sleeve of Becker’s shirt for good measure. Sasha had taught him well, before giving Matt a smug grin. “I thought that was obvious.”

“That was quick,” Matt said coldly. “Your girlfriend isn’t even dead a month, is she?”

A look of pure fury crossed Ethan’s face for a moment before he smirked again. “Jealousy doesn’t suit you, Matt. I’ll tell Becker you came by,” and closed the door in Matt’s face.

 

“Did you sleep here?” Becker asked when he woke up again two hours later.

“Consider it a favour you owe me now. Also Matt came by.”

“What did he want?”

Ethan raised his hands to show that he had no idea. “He left pretty quickly when he saw me.”

“Is that my shirt you’re wearing?”

“Couldn’t find mine. Anyway, do you mind if I use your shower before I head back?”

“No, it’s fine. Thanks, by the way.”

“As I said,” Ethan grinned “you owe me.”

 

“Hey are you hungry – hi Jess,” Ethan said as he wandered out of the bathroom. 

“Jess brought soup,” Becker said from the couch.

“Just for two…I thought…” she tried to explain but Ethan waved her off.

“Matt brought soup as well. Seems like everyone confused a poisonous bite with a cold.”

Jess flushed a little bit and Becker gave him a reproachful look.

“Sorry,” Ethan said in return.

“It’s fine,” Jess answered hurriedly. “I…ah…should go. Get well soon.” She told Becker and practically fled the flat.

“Matt, Jess, aren’t you popular Becker?” Ethan grinned, settling down on the couch. He had gotten the rest of last night’s vodka which went perfectly with Jess’ soup. It was good stuff not the cheap self-made brew they had drunk in Siberia. “And yet they don’t interest you at all.”

“Jess is like my little sister,” Becker replied and Ethan wined in a bout of sympathy for Jess and her unfortunate crush on Becker. “She’s just a kid.”

“She’ll draw all sorts of conclusions from me being in your flat half-naked and fresh out of the shower.”

“Wasn’t that illegal in your time?” Becker asked with genuine interest.

“So was communism, extra-marital sex and drinking during Lent. Never stopped people.”

“I guess not.”

“What about Matt then? Is he like your brother?”

“He’s hiding something,” Becker said solemnly, not returning Ethan’s playful tone.

“And yet you hang out with me.”

“You’re pretty open about your past.”

“Maybe I’m just trying to dissuade you from looking into it too deeply so you can’t discover my secrets.”

“I already looked you up.”

“Should I fear the executioner’s block then or will you send me back to Siberia to serve the rest of my prison term?”

“Nothing that dramatic,” Becker assured him a little amused.

“A bribe then?” Ethan asked playfully.

Becker raised his eyebrows. “What would you bribe me with?” He asked, a little challenging, a little intrigued. It was the same tone he had used the time they had talked about Ethan’s gun proficiency.

“I could think of a few things,” Ethan’s smile gained a seductive edge and he lowered his eyes.

“Tell me about them,” Becker replied his voice dropping and he leaned slightly closer.

Ethan laughed, a deep, ardent sound. “I’ll show you,” he said in the same low tone as Becker and pressed his lips against his.

 

“You have a suspicion,” Gideon said, watching Matt pace forth and back.

“I told you I had a friend I went through the anomaly with, right?” Matt asked without stopping his pacing.

Gideon nodded and waited for him to continue.

“I thought he was dead. I was sure he was dead. The last time I saw him one of the camouflage beasts chased him through an anomaly.” Matt stopped to look at his father. “He came back through the anomaly yesterday.”

“As a boy?”

Matt shook his head. “A man. He says it’s been 18 years for him and that he spent them in Tsarist Russia before another anomaly brought him to a group. The same group that came thought yesterday.”

“You don’t believe him.”

“He’s hiding something,” Matt replied which seemed to amuse Gideon.

“He’s an unlikely candidate if what he says is true.”

“Still, something isn’t right about it. Becker should have tossed them right back through the anomaly.”

Gideon laughed. “Is Becker handsome?”

“He’s good-looking I suppose,” Matt replied evasively.

“And how does Captain Becker react to him?”

Matt’s answer had to have shown on his face because Gideon chuckled, shaking his head and said with some reproach, “You have a mission, Matt. Don’t let yourself be distracted. What about Connor’s work for Philip Burton? Have you found anything?”

To his shame Matt had to shake his head.

 

Russian Empire, St. Petersburg, Hotel Europa, 1889  
“You wanted to see me, Uncle?” Ethan asked knocking on the open door of Edmundo’s study.

“Yes. Please come in.” The formality with which he said the words worried Ethan a little but he followed Edmundo’s gesture and sat down on a chair.

“You know that Irena wishes to go to university in St. Petersburg.”

Ethan nodded. Lately she was speaking of nothing else.

“I told her that I wouldn’t let her go alone and unprotected. St. Petersburg is a big city and far away from here and their ways are different form our ways here in the country.”

That explained Irena’s downtrodden and angry mood yesterday.

“While your Russian has doubtlessly improved it isn’t fit for university. But I have found a place for you at the Hotel d’Europe. You will be training there and your gift for languages will undoubtedly be of value. Also learning to manage a large hotel will prepare you for managing this estate until you and Irena return.”

Ethan stared at his uncle with an open mouth. “You mean I will inherit?”

“You’re my nephew. Irena will marry and move away therefore the estate will go to you. But I expect that you prove your worth of my trust in you during your training.”

 

The Hotel d’Europe was the most glamorous, most luxurious hotel in the Russian Empire and the hotel management was proud of the most modern lift in the whole of Europe and the first one in Russia. Before coming here Ethan had thought that the Dobrowski estate was magnificent but it paled in comparison to the Hotel d’Europe: every hallway was laid out with thick carpets, the furniture made of mahogany and every room had its own bathroom and electric lights.

Ethan would work in every part of the hotel to gain an overview and then slowly work his way up in the area the Concierge deemed the most suitable for him. Or until Irena was finished with her studies and Edmundo would call them back home.

Irena, despite studying at university, worked at the hotel as well, as a laundress. Her father didn’t believe in idleness and was firm believer that hard work formed a good character.

Working in a hotel reminded him of school: the concierge as the teacher and the boys and girls working as the students only that the concierge displayed more blatant favouritism than any teacher Ethan had ever had.

“He’s picking on her again,” Irena said as they watched Maxim, one of the liftboys, stealing Mouse’s food, the girl who cleaned the shoes overnight.

“Let it go,” Ethan told her. “There’s nothing you can do.”

“But she’s the smallest. He shouldn’t be picking on her.”

“People always pick on the weakest,” Ethan told her. He hadn’t been weak or else he wouldn’t have survived, especially not without Danny. “You can’t change that.”

“That’s the same argument people used against the emancipation of the serfs,” Irena argued.

“Didn’t do them much good, did it?” Ethan replied between his pelmini. He was too tired to discuss politics. The Guard, the giant, always ill-humoured, watchman wasn’t just making Mouse’s life a living hell. Ethan readily believed the rumour that he was part of the Tsar’s secret police.

“Exactly, we should get a say in how our country is run.”

“We got the Zemstvo,” Ethan pointed out.

“We should get a vote everywhere.”

“Even if we used it to enslave the serfs again?” Ethan asked to mess with her. Irena didn’t always think things through.

“That wouldn’t happen if everyone - ,” she started but Ethan shushed her quickly because the Guard had just walked into the dining hall.

 

Sonja Romanov was the most beautiful woman in Russia and no one else was surrounded by so many rumours. Some said that even the Tsar had asked for her hand once and that an American millionaire had offered her her own weight in gold and jewels. But Sonja Romanov was no man’s possession. It was said that she had had her heart broken when she had been young, a soldier who hadn’t returned home and afterwards no man could mend her heart.

Irena had stolen upstairs when Ethan told her that the Hotel expected Sonja Romanov, as always accompanied by her stage partner Aleksandr Khabarov.

“She’s just as beautiful as they say,” Irena whispered to him as they watched Sonja and Aleksandr dance in the glamorous ballroom under a dome of opaque glass decorated with wrought brass vines that gleamed like gold in the warm electric light.

And she was, her blonde hair was done up majestically but a few errand strands had come loose, giving her a free-spirited air. She had a small mouth with dimples on each side when she smiled and big, green eyes.

But, Ethan thought, so was Aleksandr Khabarov. He was tall, taller than most men but he moved with a grace and elegance that reminded Ethan of a cat, a panther suiting his black hair and dark eyes.

“What are you two doing here”? The Concierge hissed under his breath.

“We were – “ Irena started but the Concierge shook his head.

“I don’t want to know. Back to work, now.”

They both nodded obediently and hurried away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kocham wasze ciemne oczy - I love your dark eyes (made by google translation so feel free to correct me)
> 
> The people working in the Hotel d'Europe (a real hotel by the way) are drawn from the book "Frostfeuer" by Kai Meyer. However no knowledge of the book is needed to enjoy this fic.
> 
> Zemstvo - was a form of local government in Tsarist Russia


	4. Chapter 3

Just as Becker was cleared for duty again two anomalies appeared at the same and on top of that a call from the admiralty that had Becker rolling his eyes discreetly behind Lester’s back.

Lester, although he didn’t resort to eye-rolling wasn’t exactly happy either. “Matt, you’ll take Abby and Connor to the harbour. I already cleared your presence there with the Admiralty. Captain Becker, since you obviously think that working with a different military branch is beyond your capabilities you will accompany our two time hoppers for a trip to the countryside.”

“How did he know?” Becker mouthed to Connor who simply grinned back.

Suddenly the countryside anomaly disappeared.

“False alarm?” Jess asked but it almost immediately reappeared.

“Can I?” Connor asked, checking something on the ADD. “No, it’s an anomaly but it’s fluctuating. Maybe I should…” He gave Lester a hopeful look.

“I’d rather not have a Victorian lady or a Russian assassin running around on a nuclear submarine,” Lester replied because the man was incapable of answering a question with a simple yes or no.

It reminded Ethan of Felix only Felix had usually smirked as well.

Connor looked a little crestfallen.

“Hey, you’ll be in a submarine,” Ethan reminded him with a nudge. “Whatever that is.”

“You don’t know what a submarine is?” Jess asked surprised.

“Something that works under water?” he asked, barely managing to bite back his grin.

“Stop messing with them. You had submarines in the 1890’s,” Matt said a little testily.

“Becker, take your comedian and Emily out before the Admiralty arrives,” Lester told them with a glare in Ethan’s direction.

 

Matt didn’t mind being in a submarine. It reminded him of the shelters, small and cramped and without any privacy. Any noise that came from beyond the flimsy curtains that served as walls was ignored by everyone. Mandras’ hands laying protectively over Kate’s stomach, Izar nestling between Paavo and Tel. Marama playing a game of dice made of bones with Ara and Eli while Matt had watched the, trying to figure out the rules. He remembered it as if it happened yesterday.

 

“I see English hospitality hasn’t improved since the 1900’s,” Ethan commented after they had been thrown out of the pub.

“We should find the man who was interested in the creature as well,” Emily suggested.

“Jess, give me everything you can find about the Witchfield worm,” Becker said over radio.

“You think it’s a creature?” Ethan asked.

“I’m not taking any chances,” Becker replied. “Jess says most people say they’ve seen the worm around the cliffs so that’s where we start.”

 

“I guess this settles whether there’s really a monster or not,” Ethan said when they found the remains of a camping side.

“There’s no body,” Becker observed.

“Was probably eaten,” Ethan commented.

“There’d be traces of that,” Emily replied. “It has to have a hideout somewhere.”

The followed a thin trail of trash down the cliffs. There was a cave just underneath.

“You two stay behind me,” Becker told them when Emily made a move to go in there first.

She gave him an annoyed look but followed him.

Ethan took his revolver from his jacket. Matt might like his toy guns but Ethan wasn’t going to take any chances. At the entrance to the cave was an open gate. It couldn’t have been here for more than a couple years or else the sea water would have rotted it away already.

“There,” Emily said and rushed past Becker around a corner. White light was weakly reflecting from the cave walls. The gateway was small and flickering.

“What’s wrong with it?” Ethan asked. He had never seen a gateway acting like this and he had seen a lot. 

Emily was crouching on the ground. “There’s white sludge here, it covers the whole area around the gateway.” Becker quickly pulled her back when something came splashing down from the cave walls.

“Is that water?” Ethan asked, his hand still on his revolver. 

“No,” Emily answered, watching as the clear liquid hit the white sludge around the gateway and began to hiss and sizzle. “It’s acid.”

“Jess,” Becker reached for his radio immediately. “What’s the closest property from our position?”

“It’s a farm,” they heard Jess reply and Becker nodded grimly.

“Looks like we’ll have to knock on some doors.”

 

“Hello?” Becker called, “Anyone there?”

No reply. 

“Let’s take a look inside,” Ethan said, walking off into the direction of a barn. Before either Becker or Emily could do anything he had opened the door and was inside.

“Nothing but barrels,” Ethan told them when Becker and Emily came inside as well.

Becker sniffed. “Petrol.”

“Who are you?” A woman asked from behind them. She was armed with a shotgun that she aimed at Becker obviously thinking he was the biggest threat.

“We are visitors,” Emily said quickly with her most convincing, harmless smile.

“Armed like that,” she gestured with her shotgun towards Becker. “I don’t think so.”

“Did you open the gate?” Emily asked when she saw that a lie wouldn’t help them.

“The gate?” She frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Mum?” A man came in as well. “What’s going on?”

“I found these people breaking in,” the woman said. She was lowering the shotgun away from them for a second. That was all Ethan needed to yank it from her hand and aim his revolver at her head.

“You will tell us what you did with the creature that came through the light,” Ethan said with a casual smirk on his face.

“What are you doing?” Becker hissed into his ear.

“You won’t kill me,” the woman said with a rapidly blanching face. Ethan’s smirk had had that effect quite often on people.

“Who said anything about killing?” Ethan’s smile was all teeth and he aimed lower. “Although I can’t guarantee anything, obviously.”

“The caves underneath the cliffs,” the man answered quickly. 

“We’ve been there,” Emily replied. “There was nothing there.”

“No, no, there are two of them. They’re not always there but they always come back. They’re hunting in the headlands.” He told them with a fearful look in Ethan’s direction.

“They?” Emily asked. “How many are there?”

“Two, just the two.”

“If you don’t want the police on your doorstep I’ll suggest you forget that we were ever here,” Becker’s tone was like velvet covering steel.

 

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Becker yelled as soon as they had left the farm behind.

“What?” Ethan asked more amused than concerned.

“You can’t go around and threaten people.”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Ethan shrugged.

“That’s not how we solve our problems in this time,” Becker told him angrily.

“She pointed a weapon at you. Why don’t you go and yell at her?”

“She’s not on my team.” Becker ran a hand over his face. “Give me the gun.”

“No.”

“Give me the gun, Ethan.”

“There are a couple of monsters on the loose here. And I don’t have faith in your toy gun.”

A sudden, inhuman cry had all of them drawing their weapons. Becker glared at Emily for bringing her dagger along as well but gestured for them so spread out anyway.

“Here,” Emily called and waved them to the edge of the cliffs. Something worm like looking just crawled into the caves. They climbed down as quickly as possible and Becker took the lead once they reached the caves again.

The anomaly was still flickering but there was only one creature. It looked like a lizard that had been stretched for too long and now refused to go back to its original length.

“It’s hurt,” Emily said, using a couple stones to get a better vantage point, “from the acid.”

“We can’t bring it back through the anomaly,” Becker said. 

“Let me deal with that,” Ethan replied, stepping forward and shot the beast in the head without blinking. 

Becker grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “Are you out of your mind!” he yelled.

“Look out!” Emily screamed. 

Becker pulled Ethan down with him which sent Ethan’s revolver clattering into the darkness. It was just in time to get out of the creature’s reach. The thing was a lot bigger than the other one had been. It took another swipe at them but Emily stabbed one of its legs, causing it to lash out in pain. Emily quickly jumped aside and stabbed it again, this time going for the belly. There wasn’t much room for movement and the creature was lashing out wildly. Its death throes seemed to last forever.

 

“How was the submarine?” Becker asked Connor when they came back to the ARC.

“Oh you know, it all went well until someone tried to shoot us with a nuke,” Connor answered snarkily.

“If it helps Ethan threatened to shoot people as well,” Becker replied in an exasperated voice.

“Just one and she was about to blow Becker’s head off,” Ethan corrected him.

“She didn’t,” Becker protested. “She and her son had already killed someone by springing a monster on them,” he added.

“I presume you resolved the situation peacefully and no one actually got shot?” Lester interrupted them.

“Of course,” Becker said with another glare in Ethan’s direction. “Although the anomaly was behaving strangely. 

“How strangely?” Connor asked and then he and Becker were involved in a conversation about chemicals and physics that Ethan decidedly didn’t care for.

 

Russian Empire, St. Petersburg, cellar under the Aleksandrinsky theatre, 1894  
“You should hear him talk,” Irena said admiringly as she dragged him through the streets of St. Petersburg. “He makes it all so clear. What we have to do. Our responsibility to end this useless class war.”

“You know we’ll be fired if they find us here,” Ethan reminded although he couldn’t deny that he was curious. He had heard too many rumours about Nikolai Ulyanov not to.

“Your father will kill me if I let you get caught,” Ethan mumbled.

“Then don’t let get caught,” Irena laughed. It was already autumn again and her breath formed little white puffs when she spoke.

The square was filled with people. Most of them were workers going by their clothes but Irena waved at a few people that were obviously students. Someone had made a makeshift podium in the middle of the place. The man standing on it was young, maybe 20 with expressive blue eyes and a voice that demanded attention immediately.

“….Formerly, only students rebelled, but now thousands and tens of thousands of workers have risen as well in all the big towns. In most cases we fight against our employers, against the factory owners, against the capitalists. We declare strikes, all of them stop work at a factory at the same time and demand higher wages, demand that we should be made to work not eleven or ten hours a day, but only eight hours. We also demand other things that would make the working man’s life easier. We want the workshops to be in better condition and the machines to be protected by special devices so as to prevent them from maiming the workers; we want our children to be able to go to school and the sick to be given proper aid in the hospitals, they want the workers’ homes to be like human dwellings instead of being like pigsties.”

Ethan couldn’t stop listening. Next to him Irena took his hand and pressed it excitedly. 

“The police intervene in our struggle. The police seize us, throw us into prison, deport us without trial to our villages, or even to Siberia. The government has passed laws banning strikes and workers’ meetings. But we wage our fight against the police and against the government. We say: We, millions of working people, have bent our backs long enough! We have worked for the rich and remained paupers long enough! We have allowed them to rob us long enough! We want to unite in unions, to unite all the workers in one big workers’ union, no, a workers’ party and to strive jointly for a better life. We want to achieve a new and better order of society: in this new and better society there must be neither rich nor poor. All will have to work. Not a handful of rich people, but all the working people must enjoy the fruits of their common labour. Machines and other improvements must serve to ease the work of all and not to enable a few to grow rich at the expense of millions and tens of millions of people. The government persecutes us and our organisations but they exist in secret, despite all prohibitions; they publish news papers and pamphlets and organises secret unions. We not only meet in secret but come out into the streets in crowds and unfurl their banners bearing the inscriptions: “Long live the eight-hour day! Long live freedom!” The government savagely persecutes us for this. It even sends troops to shoot us down. Russian soldiers have killed Russian workers in Yaroslavl, St. Petersburg, Riga, Rostov-on-Don, and Zlatoust. But we do not yield. We continue the fight. We say: neither persecution, prison, deportation, penal servitude, nor death can frighten us. Our cause is a just one. We are fighting for the freedom and the happiness of all who work. We are fighting to free tens and hundreds of millions of people from abuse of power, oppression and poverty.”

Ethan cheered with everyone else. Irena dragged him forwards through the crowd, closer to the podium.

“And we know who is responsible: the Tsar. Twenty-four years ago a handful of brave men and women already tried to tear out the root of all evil. But 24 years ago we were too few and to splintered to take hold when the opportunity presented itself. We only killed on head of the beast. We – “

“Police!” Someone shouted. The crowd became restless and so did Ethan. 

“We need to go,” he told Irena, already tugging her into the direction of the streets but she yanked her hand from his grip. 

“We’ll split up. Come to the Aleksandrinsky theatre tomorrow evening at eight,” she pressed a quick kiss to his cheek and vanished in the crowd.

 

Ethan knew he shouldn’t do this. Edmundo wouldn’t approve of Irena mingling with these people. But Nikolai’s speech had moved him more than he wanted to admit. Edmundo always had talked about treating the tenants on the estate with respect so why shouldn’t the workers be paid the same respect?

He knocked at the crew entrance of the theatre. There was no play tonight and the grand windows that looked out to the Nevsky Prospect were dark and dead.

The door opened. It was Nikolai Ulyanov who ushered him inside.

“You’re Ethan Dobrowski?” Nikolai held out his hand once the door was firmly closed behind them. “Irena talks a lot about you.”

“Just good things I hope,” Ethan replied, taking Nikolai’s hand. “I heard you speaking yesterday. It was impressive.”

“Thank you,” Nikolai looked pleased, “Everyone of us tries to do their best for the cause. We’re just a small core but we speak for millions,” Nikolai explained. “Narodnaya Volya, the People’s Will. The government has tried to eradicate us since the assassination of Alexander II but we have affiliates in every major city and even more followers and every day there are more.”

“I told him to bring you in.” Irena had turned up at Nikolai’s side. “And that you’re good with languages.”

“She says you speak English and French.”

“German as well,” Irena added.

“Just a bit.”

“Come,” Irena took his hand. “I’ll introduce you to the others.”

There were fourteen people altogether including Irena and Nikolai. To his surprise there were also Sonja Romanov and Aleksandr Khabarov.

“You’re the concierge in training at the Hotel d’Europe,” Khabarov said and it sounded like a compliment.

“….yes,” Ethan managed to finally say. He couldn’t help but stare.

“I suppose it’s only natural that you would become part of our movement. You see the class struggle every day,” his voice sounded like velvet but there was a hint of steel underneath it.

“I do,” he thought about Mouse thin and tired because her shifts were too long for a 12 year old girl but she never complained since that would have meant her dismissal, about the Guard and workers from the hotel suddenly disappearing without a trace. “The hotel management sees people as expendable.”

“But you’re here,” Khabarov smiled at him. “That is a start for change.”

“I hope so,” Ethan replied.

“What is your name?”

“Ethan…Ethan Edmundovich Dobrowski.”

“Sasha,” Khabarov said with a smile and held his hand out for Ethan who took it for a moment too long.

 

“Ethan,” Irena waved at him from the cellar stairs. 

He took a look around to make sure the Concierge wasn’t anywhere close and came to her.

“What?” He asked impatiently.

“The pamphlets are ready. Nikolai asked me to deliver them but the concierge changed my shift.”

“When and where?”

“After the play at the back entrance,” she said hurriedly.

“Dobrowski!” It was the concierge. “What are you doing?”

“Miss Dobrowski had a message for me that the laundry for room 53 would be delayed because of a water shortage,” Ethan lied quickly. 

“Go back to your work, then,” the concierge told him.

 

“Ethan, come in,” Sasha smiled as he opened the door for him.

“I’m here for the pamphlets,” Ethan replied, feeling flustered. Sasha seemed to dance through the small corridors instead of walking.

“I know,” Sasha turned to him. “Don’t you ever smile? Life is far too important to be taken seriously.”

Ethan gave him a confused look.

“It’s from our new play: Lady Windermere’s Fan by Oscar Wilde. It’s hilarious and much more entertaining than our classics.”

“I never liked classics,” Ethan confessed.

“What, no ‘All that may be so and mankind is ready to agree with it, but it is not what was asked.’?”

“Tolstoy?” Ethan asked with some exasperation.

“Of course. Or would you like “Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.”?”

“I liked Anna Karenina even less. Too constructed.”

“You’ve never been in love, have you?” Sasha asked amused. “Too many relationships fail in the face of class diversion.”

“Is that why you’re here?” Sasha was surrounded by even more rumours than Sonja.

“Among other things,” he admitted. “The pamphlets are in the cellar. Tomazs should have packed them already.”

“Thank you,” Ethan said because he didn’t know what else to say.

 

“We will kill the Tsar,” Nikolai announced one day. Tomazs who was in the middle of piling a new batch of pamphlets dropped them to the ground. Sonja looked up startled and Sasha leaned back, waiting for Nikolai to continue. The only one who didn’t look surprised was Irena.

“When?” Sasha wanted to know.

“First of March,” Nikolai replied and sat down. He gestured for Ethan and Tomasz to do the same. “Sixteen years after our comrades started the war we will finish it. On the same spot, by the same means. The Tsar visits the church in memory of his father each year and he takes the same route over the Nevsky Prospect.”

 

“Hey,” Ethan said when he caught Irena alone.

“Hey,” she replied.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” He asked, “It’s not too late to leave. We could just go home.”

“Do you want to leave?” She sounded disappointed.

“No, of course not, not without you,” he assured her.

“We’ll change the world.” Her eyes seemed to glow when she said it. 

Ethan put his hands on her shoulders. “Yeah, we will.”

 

“You are concerned for her,” Sasha said as Ethan watched Irena leave with Nikolai.

“Of course I am,” Ethan told him. He was waiting for something, some kind of acknowledgment but nothing happened.

“It is a good idea. With it we can rally the masses around us.” He sounded so normal. Like nothing had happened, like they hadn’t – like they didn’t...Like he hadn’t kissed Ethan, hadn’t pressed him down on the bed and whispered quotes from plays and novels into his ear while Ethan could only gasp his name all night long.

Ethan was feeling sick with anxiety, trembling with anticipation, hungered to feel Sasha’s hands on him again but nothing happened.

“My shift is over,” Ethan said tentatively.

Sasha gave him a look that was laced with guilt and he shifted uncomfortably.

“We could go…Irena won’t be back for a while.” He thought that he sounded braver than he felt.

“Ethan, what happened was…I shouldn’t have…regardless of what was going on, it wasn’t appropriate and –“

Ethan had been telling himself no for four days that they couldn’t, that he shouldn’t and Sasha wouldn’t. He thought he could let it go without putting up a fight but he was obviously wrong, because this was worse than the waiting and the insecurity of the past couple days. He couldn’t stand here and let Sasha say no.

“I don’t care.”

Sasha shook his head. “You’re young and confused. You’ve never been in love. It’ll pass.”

“I’m not that young. And I know that this,” he waved vaguely between him and Sasha, “is nothing that will pass. I’ve seen the future, you know.” He grinned.

Sasha gave him a long look which Ethan held before he started to smile as well. “The future?”

“The future,” Ethan repeated. It was like a code for ‘this isn’t something other people would understand’, and Ethan was young and in love for the first time, and he knew what it was like to be scared of who you were.

 

“The world was changed because you were made from ivory and gold,” Sasha whispered into his skin. “The curves of your lips rewrite history.”

“Which play?” Ethan asked sleepily.

“Not a play,” Sasha sounded amused that Ethan already knew him this well, “Oscar Wilde.”

“He wrote plays,” Ethan pointed out yawning.

“And one novel: The picture of Dorian Gray.”

“Don’t tell me. It makes an important statement about one thing or another.”

“About the wastefulness of youth,” Sasha replied playfully, nudging Ethan in the ribs.

“I worked all night and delivered the pamphlets to Nikolai,” Ethan protested, keeping his eyes firmly closed. “Give me a break.”

“Work had you this exhausted?” Sasha asked, his fingertips caressing Ethan’s side.

“Yes,” Ethan replied firmly, burrowing his face in the pillows.

“What a shame,” Sasha answered in a low voice, his fingers wandering down Ethan’s thigh. “I suppose I should go then.” He got up but Ethan, still with closed eyes, snatched his hand and pulled him back down on the bed. Pulling Sasha on top of him, his lips curled into a lascivious grin.

“It’s the last night of the world. Indulge me.”

Sasha leaned closer until his lips were brushing Ethan’s ear. “It’ll be my pleasure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nikolai Ulyanov is inspired by the real-life members of the Pervomartovtsy faction of the Narodnaya Volya Nikolai Sablin who was responsible for throwing the bomb at Tsar Alexander II and Alexander Ulyanov, who attempted the same a couple years later and was the brother of Vladimir Ulyanov better known as Lenin.  
> The speech he gives is a modified version of Lenin's "To the rural poor 1. The struggle of the urban workers”
> 
> Irena draws some inspiration from Gesy Gelfman another Pervomartovtsy member
> 
> Sasha quotes from Tolstoy's “Anna Karenina” & “War and Peace” and from Oscar Wilde's “Lady Winderemere’s Fan” & “The Picture of Dorian Gray”
> 
> As with the Hotel d'Europe the Aleksandrinsky theatre and the Nevsky Prospect are real places but that is where the similarities end


	5. Chapter 4

Becker hadn’t talked to him since the incident at Witchfield with the exception of the anomaly that had spewed more than a few giant bugs into the tunnels underneath London. 

“Lester, it’s Becker. I'm afraid the EMDs won't cut it. We're going to need conventional fire power, and that means guns.”

“I thought you had the trigger-happy Victorian assassin with you.”

“There are too many even for Ethan.”

“Fine, how many guns do you need?”

“Well, as many as you can spare.” Ethan and Matt shared an amused look at the pleased tone in Becker’s voice.

“What, a tank...” Becker sounded so excited that even Abby hid a grin behind her hand.

“No, no. I was obviously joking,” Lester back-paddled quickly.

“No, really, a tank?”

“You can't have a tank!” Lester said loud enough for everyone on the other side to hear him. “Just so I know, who is it exactly that Matt intends to shoot?”

 

Matt hadn’t had this nightmare in years. But seeing the bugs again, smelling them had brought back too many bad memories. Eli came to his mind with his dark, curly hair and kind smile and bright blue eyes, hopping along on his good leg with Ara’s help as they made their way over roads so old that the silicate sands had polished them over time.

“A system of tunnels in the east,” Eli pointed out on a battered map. His skin was clammy and white and his eyes bright with fever. Ara watched him with a concerned expression and Kate was frowning at him, too but Matt had seen Eli waving them both away earlier that day and a couple times before as well.

“Water?” Mandras asked.

“Underground reservoirs here and here.”

“How many days?”

“Four to the northeast. The terrain is flat once we leave these mountains behind.”

“How long do you think we can stay there?”

“We need to leave before winter comes.”

“South?”

“South-east. The mountains in the south are too high to cross.”

Maps in the future where hand-drawn and adjusted by each owner and Matt, even after four years, had stopped trying to figure out where on earth they were.

“What do you think is wrong with him?” Matt asked Gideon quietly as he watched Eli’s leg falter under him but catching himself and waving Ara off.

“I fear it’s infected,” Gideon said with a concerned look on his face.

“But then why won’t he let Kate take a look at it?” Matt wanted to know, feeling that Gideon knew something else but was unwilling to share it.

But Gideon’s face only darkened. “Let us hope,” he said so quietly that Matt barely heard him, “that I am right.”

He wasn’t as it turned out. With morbid fascination Matt watched the writhing white mass in the gash of Eli’s leg. Most people backed off immediately as if they were afraid.

“Sorry,” Eli said, gripping Ara’s hand tightly as another shudder shook his body violently. “I had hoped to bring you closer to the tunnels before this happened.”

“What is it?” Matt whispered to Gideon.

“Hatch-Wasps. Their eggs fly with the wind and nest in any flesh, living or dead. When they hatch they consume their host.”

Matt stared at him in horror. “Kate won’t let that happen, right? And Ara won’t either.”

“There is no cure,” Gideon said gently. “There is only one mercy left for Eli.”

“If we light a fire the whole plain will go up in flames,” Marama argued.

“Would you rather have a swarm of newly hatched Wasps?” Tel asked back bitingly.

“The river,” Paavo injected, “ We can use water from the river.”

“We’re almost a day’s march from the river,” Marama crossed her arms over her chest.

“I’ll go on my own.” Eli said.

“No,” Ara replied.

“You want to set yourself on fire?” Paavo asked.

“Can’t be worse than that, can it?” Eli asked with gallows humour in his voice.

“I’ll come with you,” Tel said.

“No.” Eli shook his head to emphasise his point. “You’re not.”

“You can’t walk that far. I’ll come with you,” Ara replied his face set. No amount of arguing would change his stand.

 

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Ara told them grimly with his arm securely around Eli’s waist.

“I won’t,” Eli said and winked at Paavo. “Take good care of my maps,” he told him.

For the first time Matt had the chance to say goodbye to a friend before he died and found that he didn’t have any words to say.

Eli patted his shoulder. “You’ll be fine, kid.”

Matt woke up with a start. His whole skin felt like it was crawling with insects. Out of habit he was halfway through with checking before he remembered that the beginning of the 21st century didn’t have Hatch-Wasps or Giant Ants. Nothing here was going to eat him alive in his sleep.

 

The last couple days had been too quiet for Ethan’s liking. Lester didn’t like it when he or Emily wandered around in London unsupervised but luckily there was more than one way out of the ARC. Ethan preferred to go through the air duct and over the car park while Emily usually went over the glass roof and down the decorative elements.

“Do you feel at home now that you’re here?” he asked, resting his hand on Charlotte’s grave. There was no name but he knew. He had put her ashes her himself. “I know we were a bit late but you’re here after all. I haven’t found Danny yet. He vanished through a gateway a year ago or so. But these people here, they’re determined to find him. And when they will I’ll make him pay. I’ll toss him right back through the next gateway. Or I’ll shoot him, haven’t decided yet.” He gave a small laughed.

“I don’t know if my parents are still alive. I can still remember the house we lived in when I was a kid but I don’t remember their faces. I guess I met too many people. I don’t know if I’ll be back. But…it’s been good to say goodbye. Never got to do that before.”

 

Ethan stared at the house. The door was yellow now and the curtains were different but it was the same house. He tried to recall the colour the door had had but he couldn’t. Vaguely he remembered his mother calling him to help Danny sat the table but as soon as he tried to hold on to that memory it slipped through his mind like sand.

“What’s the name of the family that lives here?” he asked an old woman that was walking by.

“Why?” She looked at him suspiciously.

“Doesn’t matter,” Ethan started to walk away. Coming here had been a mistake.

“I know you. I never forget a face,” the old woman said as he walked past her. “You’re that boy.”

“Listen,” Ethan hissed, “My name is Ethan Dobrowski and I’ve never been here in my life. You’re mistaken. That boy is dead.”

He ran, ran as fast he could. All he wanted was to get away from here.

He didn’t even realise where he was going until he found himself in front of Becker’s building. His hands trembled when he rang the bell.

“Yes?”

“It’s me, Ethan.”

Becker let him in and Ethan jogged up the stairs. He needed to get away from the memories.

“Ethan, what – “Becker started when he opened the door but Ethan didn’t want to deal with questions so he kissed Becker. Kissed him and kissed him again, pushing at his hands every time Becker tried to stop him, following every step back until he pressed Becker into the closest wall, until it was too hard and too rough and almost not a kiss at all.

 

“What happened yesterday?” Becker asked, trailing invisible patterns on Ethan’s back. Ethan stifled a sigh. Becker never asked Matt questions like this but then he didn’t sleep with Matt either.

“Memories,” he answered and hoped Becker wouldn’t ask for more. “Just some bad memories.” He rolled onto his back and took Becker’s hand to kiss his fingertips. “In my time it was only polite to tell the person you were courting your name” Ethan said licking his lips.

Becker groaned and buried his face in Ethan’s chest, mumbling something.

“I didn’t catch that.” Ethan laughed at Becker’s obvious mortification.

“Hilary.”

Ethan blinked. “And?”

“Just Hilary. Hilary Becker.”

“Just like the butler in the Tomb Raider movies right?” Ethan asked not seeing why Becker would be so embarrassed about his name. Becker stared back. That hadn’t been the reference he had expected.

“Tomb Raider?”

“Connor,” Ethan replied as an explanation still looking at Becker.

“It’s a girl’s name. And if you ever call me Hilary where someone else can hear it I will toss you through the next anomaly I can find.”

Ethan laughed. “Might be fun.” He shifted suggestively.

That, of course, was when Jess called to inform Becker about an anomaly opening in an old prison.

 

“You should feel right at home,” Matt commented when Becker and Ethan arrived at the prison together.

“Different prison,” Ethan replied. The building was a maze and their detectors didn’t work properly, always showing the presence of an anomaly where there wasn’t one.

“This is a goose chase,” Ethan complained to Abby when they were looking for yet another gateway. Matt was searching the other side of the prison with Emily and Becker stayed with Connor at what seemed to be the only real anomaly in the building. For some reason Connor was unable to lock it permanently.

Abby opened the door. – and closed it immediately when a large bird hacked after them.

“Not a goose,” she replied dryly.

“On three?” Ethan asked.

“I like one,” she said and opened the door again.

The room was empty.

“Connor,” Abby said over radio, “the anomalies that we’re registering? We just saw one disappear. It doesn’t look like it’s stable.”

“I know,” Connor replied. “I’ve got an idea. Keep an eye out for me.”

“Connor? Connor!” Abby let out a frustrated sigh. “Connor has a plan,” she told Ethan.

“Last time Connor had a plan he blew up a building. Let’s run while we still can,” Ethan quipped.

Abby gave him a tiny smile. “Let’s go back.”

 

“Two anomalies inside each other?” They heard Matt asked when they came back upstairs.

“They act like magnets, trying to repel each other but they can’t because they’re fused. But that over-generated energy has to go somewhere so satellite anomalies opened instead.”

“What are the chances of that happening?” Abby asked.

“Tiny,” Connor answered.

“Any sign that someone might have messed with the anomalies?” Matt wanted to know. “Manipulated them into fusing?”

“No idea,” Connor shrugged. “I guess it just happens. Improbable things happen in nature all the time or none of us would be here.” He grinned excitedly and kneeled down with the small anomaly time device in his hand. “Now…I can see where they lead to.”

The first one led to the Pleistocene.

The second one to 1867.

Ethan didn’t envy Emily the choice at all.

 

 _Fate is the promise that I give to you. Hope, that’s your part, is the trust in me that I will keep that promise. Remember what you told me: Either everything happens for a reason or nothing does. I have chosen one._ Felix’s letter read where Ethan traced it with his fingers. He had never gotten this letter and to everyone else it was just a letter to Felix’s fiancée Julia. 

_Now that she’s gone from me I don’t see any meaning for my life_ Felix had written it in 1905, three years afterwards. A long time to lose hope, Ethan knew that better than anyone. The book with Felix’s letters provided transcriptions next to a copy of the letter but Ethan didn’t need one to decipher Felix’s handwriting. It still gave him a headache to read for too long though.

He closed the book when someone knocked on the door and Becker came inside. He looked restless for the lack of a better word. Ethan leaned back and waited for Becker to say something.

“A convict photo?” Becker asked when he looked at the only decoration Ethan had put up in his room.

“A friend,” he replied. It had been the oldest photo of Felix he had managed to find. There were better photos, even one where he wore the familiar smirk that Ethan had loved so much but he was older in them and not the man Ethan remembered.

“Would you go back?” Becker asked sounding forcefully.

“You mean if I found an anomaly back into my prison cell in 1902. Definitely, I was looking forward to being hanged,” Ethan replied dryly.

“You know what I mean. Do you miss home?”

“You didn’t look much into my past beyond my murder verdict, didn’t you? I was on the run. There was no home I could return to.”

“But you miss it.” It wasn’t a question. Ethan supposed it was true. If there was an anomaly to before Felix lost hope, before ‘Julia Goldman’ had died in Switzerland he wouldn’t know what he would do. But he already knew how the story would end. He knew about the Civil war, the revolution, the world wars, Felix’s death in 1926 and all the other horrors that would ravage the country he had called home for most of his life.

“All the things I’ve missed. Not that I would have lived through them without that gateway appearing in my cell. You British were rather fond of quenching anyone you even suspected of anarchism,” he said with self-deprecation.

“You don’t feel guilty,” Becker observed.

“You killed as well. Do you feel guilty?” Ethan asked back.

“It’s different. I’m a soldier.”

“You killed for your cause I killed for my cause,” Ethan shrugged. “Not much difference from my point of view.”

“Are you hungry?” Becker asked suddenly. “We could go out…somewhere.”

Ethan bit his lip to keep himself from smiling. “Unfortunately Lester has tightened my curfew. Seems I wasn’t back home at midnight one time too many.”

“You could sneak out,” Becker suggested although Ethan was fairly sure it was bordering on suggestive.

“You’ shouldn’t encourage delinquent behaviour as a soldier, should you, Captain Becker?” Ethan looked at him from under his lashes.

“It’s more like security check. Find the weak points in my defence system,” Becker’ voice dropped.

“So me sneaking out would be purely…practical,” Ethan purred.

“Solely,” Becker confirmed.

Ethan broke the charade by laughingly giving Becker a kiss. “Meet me in the car park,” he said, winking at Becker before he was out of the door.

 

Russian Empire, St. Petersburg, 1896  
The Nevsky Prospect was busy as usual. Everyone wanted to see the Tsar. Tomazs, who was repairing a streetlight, gave Ethan the signal that the carriage of the Tsar was approaching. 

In this moment they were incredibly young and passionate and grabbing the world with both hands, conquering it with wild dreams and hate and love. For one sweet, terrible, indescribable moment they could destroy themselves and the world with them.

And then the iron handcuffs were clamped around Ethan’s wrists and the moment was gone.

 

They were all led out into the courtyard except for Sonja who had got a pardon in exchange for the hand of Prince Lev Vladimirovich Urusov, Ambassador to France. An exile of a different kind. They still made her watch from a balcony. She wore black like she was already mourning for them.

“Nikolai Ivanovich Ulyanov.”

Irena hid her face in Ethan’s shoulder as they marched him in front of a wall and shot him, stifling her cry.

“Alexandru Tomasz.”

Ethan gritted his teeth. Tomasz hadn’t even done anything. He had been their look-out, nothing else. Halfway his legs collapsed under him and the guards dragged him to the wall through Ivan’s blood, deaf and ignorant to his sobbing cries of mercy.

“Irena Aljoneva Dobrowski.”

For a second Ethan thought he had been shot. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, paralysed with pain. But as the guards approached he regained his senses and stepped in front of Irena.

“No,” he growled at them. “You can’t have her.”

A quick hit to the head with the butt of a rifle left him bemused and he was shoved as aside as the men grabbed Irena.

“Do something,” Ethan yelled, mostly at Sonja who stood on the balcony like a stone statue.

“Pożegnanie młodszy brat,” she told him as she took her place in front of the wall. She was trembling and tears were running down her face but she held her head high, proud and unbroken as she had always been. Ethan watched helpless as the bullet ripped through her body, letting it dance grotesquely before it slid down the wall between the shredded bodies of their comrades. He closed his eyes, waiting for his name to be called next but it never came.

“Aleksandr Romanovich Khabarov.”

Ethan’s eyes flew open. He scrambled to his feet, desperate to do anything, offer anything to spare Sasha’s life. But Sasha fleetingly touched his shoulder, enough to hold him back.

Aleksandr Khabarov faced death with the elegance and dignity he had always shown, especially on stage.

“His Majesty Tsar Nicholas II has graciously decided to spare your lives. But your wicked deeds are not forgotten and you will be exiled to Siberia where you will work for the good of the Russian country and his majesty the Tsar.”

“Cruel mercy,” a young man not far from Ethan muttered in Polish. He caught Ethan’s eyes and smirked. “No, brother?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pożegnanie młodszy brat – Goodbye little brother
> 
> Prince Lev Vladimirovich Urusov was Ambassador to France at the time this takes places but I very likely took a lot of liberty regarding his wife


	6. Chapter 5

“Are all weddings like this?” Ethan asked, stealing Jess’ glass to take a sip only to spit it out. “What the hell is that?”

“Champagne?” Jess asked more than a little annoyed.

“Looks like piss and tastes worse,” Ethan muttered.

“Alcohol is a poison,” Connor commented with a shrug.

“You call that alcohol?”

“It’s traditional for weddings,” Abby said, joining their little group after congratulation Jenny.

Ethan looked at Emily, imploring her to back him up.

“It was served at my wedding as well,” she said hesitatingly. “But mine had considerably less wild dogs.”

“Connor,” Ethan turned to him in a dramatic gesture. “Find me an anomaly back to Russia, now.”

“I’m sure Lester would buy you a plane ticket,” Matt said with some venom.

 

They spent the summer months in the tunnels under a city which name no one remembered. It was cool and pleasant underneath with plenty of water to go around and the air was good as well. Almost as if the tunnels had been built to house refugees. 

Ara hadn’t said a word since he had returned without Eli and the others let him keep his silence. He would come back when he was ready.

In the meanwhile Matt and Paavo explored the tunnel system, leaving Izar with Tel. On a good day they would catch a rat or two. Down there rats had evolved almost to the height of a spaniel, with glossy white fur and sturdy bones.

“How did you meet?” Matt asked Paavo as they wandered through the eastern tunnels. “I mean you and Izar and Tel.”

“Found Izar in a shelter,” Paavo told him freely. “She was sitting next to her mum, trying to wake her up. She had been dead for days. I had no idea where to get my next meal from but anyway, I grabbed her.”

“And Tel?”

“He came from an anomaly, like you did. But he doesn’t like to talk about it. Says it was a bad place and that he’s rather here and there.”

“Must have been some place,” Matt commented.

“Yeah,” Paavo said. “When I met him he practically asked a predator to eat him.” He laughed. “He waved and screamed ‘hello, hello’ like a madman.” Paavo mimicked the whole action including jumping up and down.

 

“I have horrible news,” Ethan announced when he came back from the mandatory medical check up. “My diagnosis is foolproof: I’m far-sighted and will need glasses.”

“Glasses,” Becker echoed.

“Glasses,” Ethan confirmed. “It also explains why reading always gave me a headache although I doubt that Tolstoy will improve much even with glasses.”

“Your, I quote you, crippling, life-threatening headaches have been cured with a pair of glasses.”

“I never said life-threatening.”

“No, you did,” Jess said from her workplace. Ethan glared at her.

“I’m Russian. We make everything bigger so it fits in with our country. That’s why our books have the size of telephone directories and our alcohol is strong enough to remove rust and be used in surgery.”

That was when the anomaly alert started. Matt, Abby and Emily emerged from one of the labs.

“You’re not going to believe where this anomaly is located,” Jess told them.

“Try me,” Matt replied.

 

“Is it just me or could that have gone better?” Ethan asked once they were out of Connor’s lab again. Becker had stayed behind to organise the tighter security around it.

“He’s confident that he knows what he’s doing,” Jess replied although there was a hint of doubt in her voice.

“Morons always are. I knew a guy in Siberia who thought he could tell apart Siberian and Kamchatka bears in the dark,” Ethan said with a smirk.

“Matt, look at this,” Jess said.

“Did something come through?” Matt asked immediately.

“What is that?” Emily frowned at the screen.

“Uh, insects, gross,” Jess shuddered. 

“Come on,” Matt called, grabbing his weapon. Ethan and Emily followed him.

“It’s okay,” Jess called over the comms. “He put it back through.”

“That’s the last thing he should have done,” Matt yelled. 

They heard the screaming before they reached the lab. Connor wanted to open the door but it was more a gesture than a real suggestion. Any help came too late for the soldier that was in there. The security lockdown protocols engaged immediately.

“It’s okay,” Connor said sounding like he was trying to calm himself down. “My lab is sealed. The lockdown will draw all the oxygen out of it.”

“No it won’t,” Matt corrected him. “There’s still oxygen coming through your anomaly.”

“Ethan, Emily, you should leave with the rest of the non-essential staff,” Becker told them over radio. By the looks of it Emily had the same low opinion of that idea as Ethan.

“Who is he calling non-essential?” She asked annoyed.

“It’s an unfortunate choice of words but he’s got a point,” Matt replied. Emily gave him an angry look, then turned on her heel and walked out. Ethan followed her. He knew she wasn’t going to follow Becker’s command.

“Do you hear that?” she asked.

Ethan nodded. His revolver wasn’t going to be of much use in this situation but neither was Emily’s EMD. 

“They’re in the walls,” she whispered.

“So much for Connor’s theory. How do you want to do this?” he asked. This was familiar territory. There had been plenty of times where they had had to fight for their lives in the past. 

“Let’s go to the armoury, see what we can find there. There are some chemicals we can kill bugs with.”

“Spent a lot of time in the gardens?” he asked with a grin.

“My family had the most beautiful roses in all of England,” Emily replied with an equally excited smile. There had been a reason besides Matt that she hadn’t wanted to return to her time after all.

 

“Don’t shoot!” Ethan yelled as he and Emily stepped around the corner.

“What the hell! I gave you a direct order,” Becker glared at both of them.

“I know,” Emily replied. “I just thought you were wrong. I assume this is what you’re looking for?” She threw the canister at Becker who caught it with a gasp. 

“There are plenty more back here,” Ethan told them, giving Becker and Abby his best ‘we’re just trying to help’ look.

“What are you waiting for?” Emily asked. “Come help me.” 

Abby grinned and came over while Becker just stood there for a moment. 

“We really need a clearer chain of command around here,” he complained.

Ethan quickly looked away so that Becker couldn’t see him trying not to laugh. He didn’t want to sleep on the couch again.

While they carried the box and the chemicals into the hub Abby and Becker explained Matt’s plan.

“Where do you want the box?” Abby asked when they reached the others.

“Right there,” Matt directed them.

“They disobeyed a direct order,” Becker complained to Matt.

Matt looked from Becker to Emily and Ethan, then shrugged. “Get used to it,” he advised Becker.

“Matt, they’re coming,” Jess called.

“Whatever happens, don’t kill the Queen,” Matt told them.

“Why not?” Becker asked but the bugs were already there and Matt didn’t answer.

Everything seemed to go according to the plan until they heard Jess scream.

Becker broke the line to get to her but it didn’t make much difference. The plan wasn’t working out. The bugs were already eating through the box to get their Queen out. The giant insect moved into their direction and Ethan shot it more out of instinct than anything else.

“That was our only way of controlling them!” Matt yelled.

“What’s wrong?” Emily asked. “You’re burning up.” She turned to Abby. “Did you get bitten, too?”

“Yes, but I’m fine. They can’t be poisonous,” Abby replied.

“They’re not,” Jess said faintly. “I’m allergic. I need an epi-pen. There should be one in the medical bay.”

“I’ve got her,” Becker said.

“Emily, Abby you’re with Becker,” Matt replied. “Ethan, Connor, stay with me. We’ll figure something out.”

 

“Why the hell did you keep me here?” Ethan complained after Connor had explained his suicidal plan. “I’m only good to shoot things.”

“Yes, I know you were never that smart,” Matt replied bitingly. “Just keep our backs free.”  
“While you’re plotting to kill everyone?” Ethan said. “Great.”

“If you have a better idea, I’m all for it,” Matt snapped.

And then the bad news just started piling up.

 

“Between radiation and incineration which is the less painful death?” Ethan wanted to know.

“Are we’re safe in the panic room?” Matt asked.

“Maybe,” Connor replied “But I can’t do any of this since you fried my hard drive.”

“I’ll tell Becker and Emily,” Ethan said quickly. 

Jess was already hallucinating when he came down to them.

“What’s going on?” Emily asked when she saw him.

“Besides debating trust issues we have the choice between a fiery death and death by radiation,” Ethan answered in a bout of gallows humour. “I say we vote.”

“Are you ever serious?” Becker snapped at him.

“I should have died a hundred times but I didn’t. My sense of humour is all that keeps me from blowing my brains out,” Ethan snapped back. Well, that and the bullet he was going to put through Danny’s head as soon as he saw his brother again.

“Guys,” Abby came jogging down the corridor. “We need to get to the panic room.”

“We need to get Jess out of here,” Becker replied. 

“Matt and Connor are going to kill the beetles with gamma radiation. Then we can lift lock down and get Jess to a hospital. If it doesn’t work we’ll all be incinerated in less than ten minutes.”

“Connor sounded less sure about the panic room when I was there,” Ethan commented. 

“It’s better than no protection,” Abby replied. They were at the head, keeping the beetles away from the Becker and Jess as much as possible while Emily held the rear end.

“I just hope my luck will hold true,” Ethan said more to himself than to her.

It did. Everyone’s luck held true.

 

Russian Empire, Siberia, Khabarovsk, 1897  
The first time he killed a man, someone who had stolen his food. He took a stone and bashed his head in like he had done with the shadow jumpers. 

It didn’t feel any differently.

“Hey, you,” a voice called him.

“What do you want?” Ethan asked, squaring his shoulders and picked up another stone. The one he had used was too slippery with blood. 

“You should take his revolver as well. Makes for a better impression,” the other man said casually. Ethan quickly searched the dead man’s pockets with one hand still holding onto the stone with the other. Finding what he was looking for Ethan cocked the revolver into the other man’s direction. “I know you. You were sentenced with us in St. Petersburg.”

“Felix Dzerzhinsky,” the other man said, offering his vodka to Ethan.

“Ethan Dobrowski.”

“I heard about you. You’re Irene’s cousin.”

“I was Irene’s cousin,” Ethan corrected bitterly.

“Bad luck that one,” Felix grimaced. “I’m sorry for you.”

“Thanks,” Ethan took another swig and changed the topic. “You know where we are?”

“Khabarovsk, end of the line,” Felix smirked.

“Could be worse. I heard Magadan is the place no one comes back from.”

“I guess the Tsar wanted to give us a fair chance to escape.

“You’re in a hurry?”

“I miss home,” Ethan could hear that there was some truth in it.

“Where are you from?”

“Ivyantes, it’s near Vilna. And you?”

“Rasskazovsky, Tambov Oblast,” Ethan answered. The lie came from his lips easier than the truth.

“So far away and yet we both end up here.”

“Maybe it’s fate,” Ethan grinned.

 

“I heard you’re a good shot.” A man had approached Ethan and Felix who were playing checkers with differently marked stones.

“What’s it to you?” Ethan asked back.

“You got six rounds, if that, and if you need more you’re gonna need me,” the man replied. His appearance and speech marked him as a common criminal who usually didn’t mingle with political prisoners like Felix and Ethan.

“What do you want?”

“I have a little…arrangement with the guards. Everyone likes a good piece of game, no?” He grinned, showing the ruins of his teeth.

“What’s in for me?” Ethan wanted to know.

“A little piece of meat there, a pelt here…scouting the area for the best way back west…” he trailed off with a meaningful look.

“And your name?”

“Valkan, Nikolai Valkan. What do you say, Dobrowski? Do we have a deal?”

“We do.”

 

Ethan wasn’t a stranger to hard work but that had little to do with the back-breaking labour that they were forced to do. Khabarovsk’s summers were a lot hotter and more humid than anything Ethan was used to and the food was nearly as bad as it had been in prison in St. Petersburg.

 

“You didn’t know?” Ethan asked, licking his lips. He could still taste Felix.

“I heard rumours about you and Khabarov, well mostly about Khabarov.”

“I thought you wanted to be a priest.”

“I obviously wasn’t very good at it,” Felix replied with a smirk.

“Why now? We’ve been here for a couple months?”

“It’s winter. Who knows how long we have to live. There was no better moment to come clean with you, wasn’t there?”

“What about your escape?”

“I’m working on it,” Felix promised him.

 

It started with headaches, chills and his muscles hurting all the time. Ethan barely noticed it. They were clearing the area around Khabarovsk in the direction of Blagoveshchensk and there hadn’t been a single day so far that had passed without pain and exhaustion. Their huts were badly built and everyone was shivering whenever the wind whistled through the gaps. 

“Ethan?” Felix whispered. “Are you feeling fine?” He sounded concerned. Like many others they had piled their blankets together to keep warm on the slatted frame that doubled as beds around here.

Ethan, in the middle of another coughing attack that had started plaguing him a couple days ago, could only nod.

“You’re burning,” Felix said and touched his forehead. 

Ethan shuddered. “You’re just cold,” he complained. The light that was creeping in from the gaps was hurting his eyes and worsened his headache.

“I arranged our escape,” Felix whispered. “We’ll leave with the next supply transport into the city and from there we can leave with the Trans-Siberian railway all the way back to St. Petersburg.”

“Sounds good,” Ethan said hoarsely. His throat felt raw and hurt and he could feel the next coughing attack building in his chest. “When?”

“Tomorrow morning,” Felix gave him an encouraging smile. “Tomorrow we’ll be free again.”

Ethan smiled back weakly. The guards were banging on the doors to wake them for a new day of work. He pushed the blankets off and got to his feet to line up for breakfast with everyone else.

He never made it that far.

 

They kept him separate from the other prisoners to not spread the disease. 

“Jail fever,” the doctor had said and left it at that. He was just a prisoner, no one was interested whether he died or not.

“I’ll be back,” Felix took his hand between his. To Ethan his hands felt cool but then he was burning. “I’ll come back for you, Ethan, I promise.”

“Go,” Ethan said hoarsely. 

“Promise me, promise me you’ll be here when I come back,” Felix demanded. Had Sasha ever looked at him like this? With so much affection? Ethan could barely remember Sasha’s face through the haze the fever was building around him.

“Go.”

“Ethan-“

“Go!” With his last strength Ethan pushed Felix away and slipped back into unconsciousness.

 

He survived, barely but he did. As soon as the snow was melting Ethan was back on his feet, working and hunting in his spare time. If Valkan had expected him to run as soon as the first opportunity presented itself he never showed his confusion that Ethan stayed. He had given Felix his word and he would keep it. 

Just like this month after month passed and the turn of the new century came. The first convicts of the 20th century (his century, Ethan thought sometimes) arrived in February and In front of them Felix marched looking for all the world as if he just happened to be here, his eternal smirk firmly in place. Then he noticed Ethan and winked at him.

“You’re back,” Ethan said needlessly but a part of him hadn’t believed that Felix would actually keep his word.

“Told you so,” Felix grinned. “But don’t tell the secret police. They’re very proud of capturing me just a year after my escape.”

“A year?” Ethan asked. 

“They sent me to work in a book binding factory first,” Felix told him. “I had to set up an illegal press before they deported me back here,” he rolled his eyes as if he found the whole thing hilarious. He brushed his hand over Ethan’s shoulder. “Nice coat. I see you still keep everyone safe from the Misha.” Like everyone Felix avoided calling a bear by its name. Ethan, who had once dismissed that as superstition had seen too much by now and followed the same tradition.

“I can’t believe you actually came back here,” Ethan said instead.

“I promised you, didn’t I?” Felix smirked. Ethan swallowed against the urge to kiss him right here out in the open. “Don’t worry. We won’t be here for long.”

 

“You planned this!” Ethan accused Felix who grinned unrepentantly.

“Of course. I’ve written my sister many letters about my lovely fiancée.” He offered the ring to Ethan who glared at him but took the ring anyway. It fit perfectly.

“You look lovely,” Felix said, still grinning.

“I look like a whore,” Ethan groused.

“Maybe a little,” Felix admitted and quickly ducked to avoid being hit.

 

The guards didn’t chase them far. From their opinion Ethan and Felix had nowhere to go. There was nothing but forest and swamps for miles and miles around the katorga and Khabarovsk was small enough that they would have been caught immediately.

The dress was obstructive for wandering in the forest but the ruse held true. 

“Who are you?” The officer asked them. Ethan kept his head down and, under his coat, tightened his grip around his revolver. He had stolen all of Valkan’s ammunition before bailing but it would still mean the two of them against a dozen soldiers.

“We are just walking here,” Felix replied, showing the officer their fake passports.

“You are very far from the next settlement,” the officer observed.

“We have been walking for a while,” Felix admitted. 

“Where do you want to go?”

“West, as far west as possible,” Felix leaned closer and Ethan heard him whisper. “Please, our families…we have married in secret…We cannot go back.”

The officer grinned. “We have a couple of elopers here.” The other soldiers laughed as well.

“Why don’t you show us your lovely wife’s face?”

“Julia,” Felix said and Ethan raised his head slowly. His heart was pounding in his chest. If the soldiers saw through his disguise then they would likely be dead in a few moments.

“I guess you don’t have much of a choice, here at the end of the world,” one soldier commented. Ethan had a biting reply on his tongue but held back. His voice would be a dead giveaway that he wasn’t a girl.

“Go,” the officer tilted his head. “Good luck.”

“Thank you,” Felix replied and just like that they were past the outpost.

 

“Father,” Felix implored, “Can you take us with you for a short ride? My betrothed is hurt and needs rest.”

Under his costume Ethan gritted his teeth while trying to look as demure as possible.

The farmer nodded and Felix, mindful of Ethan’s ankle, helped him into the cart before joining the farmer in the front seat.

“You are not from around here”; the farmer observed. Ethan felt an unwise, sarcastic comment on his tongue and bit his lips to refrain from speaking.

“A visit, father, to introduce my betrothed to the farer branches of the family. But my father sent for me that he needs me in the shop.”

“You bring news then?”

“Nothing new,” Felix sighed. “The Tsar is healthy, God bless him, but his son is ill and people say the Tsarina turns to dark forces to seek a cure for him.”

“Foreigner,” the farmer spat. “Knows nothing about our country and our ways. God will cure the boy if he wants him to live.”

“My word, father, my word,” Felix replied.

“Your betrothed, can’t she speak for herself?”

“Alas, no. Silent as a fish but quick hands and if you could see her dark tresses you would duel me for her hand.”

“Silence is a good quality in a wife, let me tell you,” the farmer said with a laugh and the hen-pecked expression of many married men.

Felix agreed, not letting his face betray that Ethan had kicked him hard in the shin. Instead he asked, “Do you have children?”

“Two sons and a daughter.”

“You are blessed in many ways,” Felix said politely. Ethan would have sworn any oath that Felix was enjoying himself immensely.

After a short break Felix climbed into the back with Ethan.

“How is your ankle?” he asked quietly. Ethan lifted the edge of his skirt. His ankle was swollen and deep violet. 

“Can you move it?” Felix tried to feel the injury carefully but Ethan had to bite his lips to keep quiet.

“When we reach the Ural we can take the train.” Felix leaned his forehead against Ethan’s. “We’ll be fine.”

 

“May God bless your union with many children,” the farmer wished them as a goodbye.

“And may he give you plenty of harvest and a happy home,” Felix replied and Ethan bowed demurely only to mutter, “doubtful,” under his breath.

“Let’s find an inn and practice then,” Felix grinned. “Maybe God will grant us a miracle.”

“You don’t even believe in god,” Ethan replied. He was leaning heavily on Felix to avoid putting too much pressure on his ankle.

Felix shrugged. “Maybe he decides to prove himself to me.”

“You better keep your promise then,” Ethan teased him. “I’m from an honourable family.”

Felix traced Ethan’s bottom lip with his thumb. “Not honourable enough to resist living in sin with me.”

 

“What are you looking at?” Felix asked good-naturedly. They had stopped at an abandoned hut for the night and lit a fire in the still functional fireplace.

“You,” Ethan replied, sprawled on the floor. His had loosened the headscarf but still wore the dress. It was just too much hassle. He had to look ridiculous, a grown man in a dress.

“An irresistible sight, I know,” Felix preened.

“The only sight,” Ethan corrected with a grin and yelped when Felix pinned him to the ground.

“So you’d rather look at someone else?”

“Never said that,” Ethan replied. “You lost hair.”

“I know,” Felix sighed. “I’ll probably go bald before I turn fifty.” He pulled at one of Ethan black strands. “Unlike some.”

“What would you want with a bald wife?” Ethan asked cheekily. “Or do you plan to leave me before the altar?” He flattered his eyelashes at Felix in an exaggeratedly hopeful manner. Felix laughed and kissed him.

“After the revolution” he said, combing his fingers through Ethan’s hair, “I’ll marry you as Ethan Dobrowski.”

“You think the world will change that quickly?”

“The world doesn’t change. We change it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Felix Dzerzhynski was a real person but I took great liberties with his life
> 
> And I gave Ethan glasses because his actor, Jonathan Byrne, wears glasses.


	7. Chapter 6

“I take it back,” Becker said. “These things can take down a T-Rex, eventually.”

“So could a shotgun,” Ethan felt obliged to point out. 

“Fine, let’s get this thing back to where it came from. Did anyone think of a cover story yet?” Matt replied with a smile.

“Jess, can you tell us where the anomaly is?” Emily asked over radio.

“Just around the corner.”

“Thank God, I was starting to think we’d have to lug it back to the arse end of nowhere,” Becker muttered. 

“Here,” Emily had already walked over to the truck and got a rope from the trunk. 

“Wait,” Ethan held up his hand then pointed his weapon. “There’s something else coming through.”

A man stumbled through, leaning heavily onto a stick. 

Ethan pointed his gun directly at the man’s head.

It was Danny.

They stared at each other. Danny had changed a lot even going by the man Abby had showed him in the photograph. He was thinner, exhausted in dirty, worn clothes and with long hair.

“Patrick?” Danny asked as if he couldn’t believe it.

Ethan’s grip on his gun tightened as he looked Danny in the eyes and there was nothing there. No anger, no resentment, no feeling of being abandoned. It was like Matt had said. They weren’t fourteen anymore. He wasn’t even Patrick Quinn any more, hadn’t been for a long time, he realised now.

“Sorry,” he said lowering his gun. “You must mistake me for someone else.”

“Patrick, it’s me, Danny.”

“My name’s Ethan. You’ve got the wrong man. I don’t know anyone named Patrick. Or Quinn for that matter.” He could see from the corner of his eyes at Matt gave him a surprised look. And then Becker and Abby and Connor were around Danny, hugging him happily.

Ethan stood back with Emily and Matt. 

“What is with you and giant carnivorous dinosaurs?” Becker asked Danny affectionately.

“They love me, mate,” Danny replied with a grin. He shot Ethan another scrutinising look which Ethan ignored. 

“You got a new team then?” Danny asked, finally looking away from Ethan to Matt and Emily.

“I’m Matt Anderson,” Matt introduced himself.

“Nice to meet you,” Danny replied. “You’ve been keeping them alive?”

“I did my best,” Matt answered with a pleased smile.

“I’m Lady Emily Merchant,” Emily said, a little too formal like every time she introduced herself properly.

“Emily’s from the Victorian era,” Connor explained with a gleeful expression.

“And Matt is from the future,” Abby added.

“Tsarist Russia,” Ethan said when Danny looked at him again. “There’s also a huge dinosaur we need to get rid of before it wakes up?” He hoped that would distract them sufficiently.

 

“I’m telling you that’s my brother,” Danny insisted.

“Danny, I checked Ethan. Jess did as well. She even found a register from an old church book near the place Ethan claims he comes from. It’s all legit,” Becker said.

“You seem to be very sure,” Lester observed.

“Yes!”

“Is there anything else we could use to identify Ethan? A birthmark maybe?” Lester asked.

“He has a scar on his abdomen where they had to take out his appendix.”

Lester raised his eyebrows at Becker who blushed. “He has a scar there but it’s from a stab wound, pretty badly healed. Nothing like a precise surgical scar.”

“Anything else?” Lester turned back to Danny.” I mean we could take a DNA test if you insist but that would take a day or two.”

Danny struggled for a moment but then he said, “He has a birthmark on his back. It looks like a cloverleaf. Our mother always said that was why she named him Patrick.”

For a moment Becker turned pale then he turned on his heel, rushing out of the room.

 

“So you’re the missing Patrick Quinn,” Lester’s voice betrayed no emotion.

“My name is Ethan Edmundovich Dobrowski,” Ethan replied steadily. From the corner of his eyes his could see Danny watching him.

“When did you take that identity?”

“In 1887 when my uncle adopted me.”

“And before that you were Patrick Quinn.”

“What does it matter what I did as a kid?”

“It matters when your brother is part of the same organisation as you are,” Lester replied.

“Look, I went through that anomaly 19 years ago. A lot of things happened since then. I didn’t recognise Danny on that photo and at first I didn’t recognise him when he came through the anomaly,” Ethan lied but the only person who could call him out on it would never do it.

“You denied being Patrick Quinn quite vehemently.”

“There was a time,” Ethan threw in a pause for sincerity’s sake. Sasha had made him a good liar. “When I blamed Danny for what happened to me. Maybe a part of me still does. But most of all you have to understand that I’m not Patrick Quinn any more. I thought I’d be easier for Danny to accept that his brother was dead and move on like I did.”

Ethan met Lester’s eyes without hesitation to show that he was telling the truth. 

Lester looked away first, accepting Ethan’s story. “Danny wants to talk to you.”

Ethan sighed. “Am I back on the team if I talk to him?”

“You were never off the team. But if I were you I’d spent my monthly wage on chocolate and flowers for Captain Becker,” Lester said as he got up.

“Thank you,” Ethan answered, sincerely feeling grateful towards Lester. Then the door opened to reveal Danny and all feelings disappeared. The only thing that remained was the strange detachment he had felt last time as well when he had pointed a gun at Danny’s head and hadn’t shot.

“I’ll leave you two,” Lester said, looking from Danny to Ethan.

“Thanks,” Danny murmured as the door slid shut behind Lester.

“What do you want?” Ethan asked, leaning back in his chair.

“Patrick – “

“Don’t call me that,” Ethan interrupted him, slightly annoyed.

“What happened to you?” Danny asked.

Ethan shrugged non-committedly. “Life.”

“I tried to find you – “

“You didn’t. What do you want to hear from me, Danny? That I blame you? I did. That I forgive you? Done. I moved on, maybe you should, too.”

“I want us to be a family again.”

“And that is precisely the one thing I can’t give to you. I already have a family.”

“You’re my brother, Patrick and nothing – “

“My name,” Ethan interrupted him coldly, “is Ethan Edmundovich Dobrowski. Patrick Quinn is dead. He died fourteen years old, far away from here and a long time ago.” He stood up. “Get that into your head, Quinn,” he said and left the room.

 

“So your secret is out then as well as mine,” Matt said when he found Ethan in an empty room. Becker had already left, citing personal reasons. There had only ever been one secret between them, one possible betrayal. And now it was finally done. Only Ethan didn’t know whether to feel relieved or not. Becker had become someone just as irreplaceable as Irena or Sasha or Felix had been in his shitty, ridiculous life. But they had been taken from him by force and the idea alone that Becker might not come back, not because he couldn’t but simply because he didn’t want to, terrified Ethan.

“Not really. Everyone still thinks you’re Matt Anderson.”

“You could tell them,” Matt said, sounding apprehensive.

“Why should I?” It seemed all pointless now. If there had been an anomaly opening right now Ethan would have probably walked through it without looking back.

“You didn’t shoot Danny.”

“I didn’t care anymore. Over all these years I built him into some kind of monster that was responsible for all the things that happened to us. But when I saw him he was just a man and he didn’t matter to me at all.”

“You matter to him.”

Ethan shook his head. “His idea of me matters to him. He looks at me and sees Patrick. When I looked at him I realised that I haven’t been Patrick in a long time.”

 

“I know you’re in there, Becker,” Ethan shouted, hammering against the door. “Your nosy neighbour told me. Now open that door or I’ll shout your first name through the whole staircase.”

He tried not to let his fear get the better of him. Since the night after Becker had been bitten Ethan had hoped that this man, this place, this time would be his last.

Finally Becker opened the door, his face drawn and unreadable.

“Knew that threat would make you open,” Ethan tried to joke.

“What do you want?” Becker asked brusquely.

“To explain,” Ethan offered. “I owe you that.”

“I don’t think you do,” Becker replied coldly and closed the door.

 

The door opened again sometime in the middle of the night.

“You’re a stubborn fuck, you know that?” Becker said with some resign.

Ethan grinned but that gained him no reaction from Becker.

“Get up. Lester just called. Anomalies are opening everywhere and they need everyone in,” Becker’s tone was strictly professional.

“Can you give me a ride?”

“Do I have a choice?” 

“Where are we going?”

“We are going nowhere. I’m dropping you off at the ARC to get your gear.”

Ethan pulled his revolver from his jacket. “I’ve got my gear.”

“Were you planning to shoot me?”

“I was a political assassin, not a murderer.”

“Your verdict says something else.”

The words weren’t so different from their usual banter but the tone was. Becker’s words were cool and clipped and he didn’t look at Ethan, not once.

At least he wasn’t calling him Patrick any more.

 

“Jess, where do you need me?” Ethan asked after Becker had dropped him off without speaking another word to him. Like everyone else he had taken a black box but not one of the EMD’s. He hadn’t died so far and he was not going start now to take his chances.

“Team Alpha needs back-up,” she explained and gave him the coordinates. “Can you even drive?” She asked in the last second.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“You can’t just shoot them,” Abby told him angrily. She was gearing up as well.

“You’re too attached to these things, Abby,” Ethan told her.

“They’re living beings,” Abby countered, her voice full of resentment.

“You use them and you eat them, that’s what they’re for.”

“Not bringing them back to their time can change the past,” Connor added.

“Did you look at the past?” Ethan asked. “Because it could do with some changes.”

“Patrick,” Danny started but Ethan ignored him. Maybe he could earn Becker’s trust back with this.

 

There wasn’t much left of Team Alpha when he arrived. The pack of Smilodons had made them their lunch and were still devouring one of them noisily. 

Ethan fired two shots and ran. Behind him he could them growling, the soft tap, tap of their paws against the wooden floor. He slipped on a bloody patch, scrambling to get some cover as the giant cat approached. It struck at him with its paw, claws extended and Ethan heard it tearing through his jacket. 

For a moment he was fourteen again and trying to get away from a shadow beast. Blind panic was gripping him and he wildly shot behind him until he heard the beast collapse.

He checked his weapon. One bullet left. The disadvantage of a revolver was that you needed time to reload it. His hands were still trembling uncontrollably with the adrenalin from his panic attack and the bullets repeatedly slipped through his sweaty fingers.

“Breathe,” he told himself, “Breathe normally you idiot.” It didn’t work.

Another Smilodon was poking its head around the corner. 

One bullet. He had one bullet left. Ethan aimed, closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.

 

“So this is it then?” he asked, standing in front of the giant gateway when the others arrived. Communications had been down for a while now but he had had a feeling that he would find them here. “That’s the end of the world?”

“Not if we can stop it. We get this,” Matt gestured to the black cylinder, “in there and see what happens.”

“Let’s go then,” Ethan grinned at him.

“It’s a one way trip,” Matt replied.

Ethan looked at Becker. Suddenly it was clear how he would earn his second chance. “I guess it’d be symbolic if it ends here with the two of us.” He gave Matt a smile. “And if anyone’s going to survive a suicide mission, it’d be us, right?”

“Right,” Matt replied.

Becker had already secured the cylinder on the back of the truck so Ethan ostensibly leaned in to secure the steering wheel while Emily said goodbye to Matt.

“I’ll see you when it’s done,” Ethan told Becker before he and Matt jumped into the car and drove into the anomaly.

 

“Get out,” Matt yelled as soon as they had left the golden light behind them. Ethan opened the door and let himself fall, rolling through sand and stone. The wind was blinding him and the air was thick with the smell of rotten eggs. He couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe.

Someone, Matt, was hauling him to his feet, dragging him forwards, home hopefully.

The first breath of fresh air felt like redemption. 

“You were right you know,” Ethan said between coughs.

“Right with what?” Matt asked, still dragging him forwards, through the dust the explosion had stirred up. 

“When you said I had no idea what you had gone through. I went through the better gateway.”

“Matt! Ethan!” Abby reached them first and threw her arms around both men, followed by Connor. When they let go Emily hugged Ethan before pulling Matt into her arms. Ethan even hugged Danny for a short moment before he saw Becker. He hesitated in front of him but Becker just grabbed him by his coat and kissed him right in front of the others.

He had his second chance. Now he would have to use it.

 

Ethan knocked at Becker’s door. Lester had told them all to go home and celebrate that they weren’t dead but that that would be no excuse to be late for work tomorrow morning.

“Come in,” Becker said and left the door open for him.

Ethan followed him, leaving his shoes in the usual spot, into the kitchen. Becker had made tea and Ethan noticed with relief that he hadn’t taken down the picture of the two of them from the fridge.

Becker handed him a mug. “You have to feel cold.”

“Thanks,” Ethan said and took a sip. Lots of milk and sugar just how he liked it.

“How do you like my new glasses?” he asked to avoid the conversation he had come here to have.

“You look different,” Becker replied.

“Good different or bad different?”

“Good different. More modern.”  
“That was what I was going for,” Ethan said and trailed off, staring into his mug of tea.

“All right, you said you wanted to explain, so explain.” Just having saved the world or not Becker wouldn’t give him anything, Ethan could see that. He would have to convince him to give him a second chance.

“I didn’t tell you that I used to be Patrick Quinn because I didn’t think it matter.” The same lie he told Lester. But then saying, “I kept quiet because I wanted to kill my brother as soon as he came back” wasn’t going to win him any sympathy. Some truths were better left unsaid.

“You used to be Patrick Quinn?” Becker asked.

“Are 19 years not enough to change a man?” Ethan asked back.

“Fair enough. But why deny it so strongly when Danny recognised you?”

“I’m not Patrick Quinn but Danny will never accept that.”

“And your stories…”

“Everything I told you was the truth. Although I might have dramatized one or two things,” he said conspiratorially. Becker shook his head but Ethan could see that he was fighting a smile.

“You should have gone to stage.”

“If you’re ever in St. Petersburg during the 1895/96 season come to the Aleksandrinsky theatre. I was an amazing drunken sailor in the second act.”

This time Becker did smile. “Show me.” And Ethan launched into his best drunken rendition of a Russian sea shanty that Sasha would have been proud of.


	8. Epilogue

United Kingdom, London, 1902  
The sentence hadn’t been any surprise: death by hanging.

He shouldn’t have listened to Rosa Luxemburg when he and Felix had attended the conference in Berlin. He should have gone with Felix back to Russia instead of accepting the mission to go to Britain and spread the word by the propaganda of the deed.

He had done just that. Six people were dead before they had caught up with him. It wasn’t dying for the course that he minded but he would have rather done it at Felix’s side although the irony of being hanged in his hometown a couple decades before he was even born wasn’t lost on him.

No, the surprise was the gateway that had appeared in his cell in the middle of the night.

Fifteen years after a monster had chased him through one of these lights into the wrong world and the wrong time it had come back for him.

“The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience,” Ethan quoted to himself. The light was brighter than he had remembered and the shards flitted through his hands. It probably wouldn’t take him to Switzerland but it would save his life.

Ethan smirked at the sheer irony of it.

Things had got really out of hand but he wasn’t dead yet and he just might make it home.

 

The woman’s face was tanned and her long brown tresses fell openly over her shoulders when she kneeled down next to him.

“Do you feel better?” she asked.

“Where am I?”

She shrugged. “Far away from home. Like the rest of us.” She helped him stand up. “I’m Charlotte.”

 

The future   
“We found an anomaly back into the time before,” Mandras told them, coughing heavily as he did. By this world’s standard he was old but not as ancient as Matt’s father. “I will send you back to set right what went wrong.”

“Why me?” Matt asked.

“Because you came from that time. You can fit in where we can’t.”

“I haven’t been there for 20 years,” Matt argued. “It’s too much for one man.”

“You father will come with you,” Mandras coughed again. “He knows our history better than anyone else. It is in your hands to save us.”


End file.
